Vineyard

The grapes for this wine come from our initial Blend Block planting in 1983 and an additional area of Merlot Noir planted below our Pinot Noir vineyard. The soils are generally free draining laminated siltstones derived gravels over a free draining red clay base and the rows are aligned North /South to ensure good sunlight interception. As our first planted vineyard, it is always special for us and has provided magical fruit over the decades.

Vintage Conditions

The Weather At Bloodwood is always the same; It's Different!

Winter and Spring was awash. In June, July, August we recorded 529.4 mm when the long-term median at Bloodwood for those three months is 205.95 mm. (i.e. 257 % more than median) Spring rainfall over September, October and November saw 432.6 mm fall against the long term median for Spring of 218.07 mm. (207% above median)

Summer, though, was warm, stable and very dry with only 2 mm of rain for February. With very good fruit set and so much available moisture in the soil profile, we suffered little with record heat in early February. We recorded 41.4 C on 12/2/2017 which is 1.7C higher than ever before recorded at Bloodwood.

Around the Orange region, provided the vine trimmer brigade didn't toothbrush their vines too savagely, the fruit mostly survived the extremes of the February heat. Depending upon the elevation of each vineyard, the early whites and reds were safely into the wineries before the deluge in March. I recorded 173 mm at Bloodwood for March against a long-term median of 63.8 mm. So, like 2014, you had to be light on your feet with the later varieties. Sunshine and calm warmth returned from about 20th March so most managed to get their late reds off in better than expected condition.

Like vintage 2014 though, 13% al/vol is the new 15%..no bad thing really. Yields were good across all varieties although Chardonnay vineyards were a little shy. The crop load played its part in delaying harvest even though we had record warmth during summer.

Vintage 2017 gave us something to like across all varieties. Pinot Noir, Malbec, Merlot and Chardonnay are strong and I quite like what I see in both Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. Shiraz though, could once again be the surprise packet. It's a year of good volume and good quality, despite the untimely rainfall in March and the extreme heat of February.

Winemaking

As I’ve outlined elsewhere, we believe in macro oxygenation during the early fermentation process here at Bloodwood. And this wine is no exception. The Merlot Noir fruit was hand plunged in open fermenters, much like we treat our Pinot Noir, with plenty of air in our cool cellars with a whole volume pump-over and splash on day three to invigorate the natural fermentation. A high proportion of whole berries are a constant in all our red ferments, and regular splash pumping over helps bring the tannins into shape early in the winemaking process. The wine spent 24 months in mostly older French oak hogsheads before sterile filtration and bottling in September 2019

Wine Analysis

pH 3.38

Acidity 5.8g/l

Alc/Vol 13.7%

Tasting Notes

Dark cerise in colour, the juicy plum notes and fleshy black cherry palate of this wine is savoury smooth and bright to the core. Two years in mostly older fine grained French oak have given this wine the length and integration we look for in our Bloodwood Merlot Noir

13.7% Al/Vol