The Merchant Shiraz

The Merchant is named in honour of second generation, Thomas Claudius (T.C.) Seabrook, who was a respected wine merchant, judge and educator. At the age of 12, T.C. began work in the family business, WJ Seabrook & Son, a classic English wine merchant that imported and exported wines, and produced its own blends. T.C was renowned for his excellent palate and acerbic wit and was often referred to as “the man with the uncanny palate”. He was honorary secretary and president of the Viticultural Society of Victoria and in 1963 appointed O.B.E. Like his father before him and his son Douglas after him, he was also chairman of wine judges at the Victorian Royal Agricultural Show. TASTING NOTE: This wine is rich and full and yet soft and textural, with deliciously dark, concentrated, brooding fruits, and notes of cassis and black spice. As this Shiraz opens up, it shows layers of complex fruit, with succulent tannins framing the wine perfectly. This is a wine of enormous length, and a perfect example of a wine demonstrating place and time. VINEYARD: Sourced from our ‘Home Block’ estate vineyard, on the Eastern Ridge of the Barossa Valley. The rows are orientated north south and the vineyard captures most of the afternoon sun. The shallow soils consist of innocuous clay and loams over white non-reactive clays. This coupled with the orientation and aspect, allow perfect conditions for early ripening. The small berry size and the low cropping levels provide high-quality concentrated fruit. HARVEST: Great winter and spring rains helped fill the soil profile and set up the vines for a good season. Ripening was quite expedient in the first two weeks of January, where we thought it may be the earliest harvest on record. A late rain event on Valentine’s Day resulted in 100 mm of rain in just 24 hours, which slowed ripening down. Harvest commenced on February 18, one week later after the rain event. WINEMAKING: The Shiraz was handpicked at 14.5 then destemmed and crushed to open fermenters and chilled to 10 degrees. The fruit was left for five days on skins cold without yeast. Natural yeast commenced fermentation. The fermentation was kept cool and allowed to go dry on skins five days later. The ferment was hand plunged twice daily and rack and returned once a day. The ferment is further left on skins for four days then basket pressed to tank. The wine was left for four days to settle heavy solids out then transferred to barrels. The wine went through Malo naturally (10 weeks), then racked off and left on mild lees for 24 months in barrel and left in bottle for an extra 12 months for aging purposes.