Tyrrells Rufus Stone Heathcote Shiraz

Description

Tyrrells Rufus Stone Heathcote Shiraz is made from 100% Shiraz Grapes sourced from the Heathcote wine growing region of Victoria which is situated between the Goulburn Valley and Bendigo regions.

Tyrrells wines was founded by Edward Tyrrell in 1858 and, since then, it has grown into one of the largest and most prestigious wine companies in Australia. From a base of 60 acres of vines in the Hunter Valley, the estate has grown to 900 acres of premium vineyards in Limestone Coast, McLaren Vale in South Australia and the Heathcote region in Victoria. Today Tyrrells wines is in the hands of 4th generation owner Bruce Tyrrell and family who continue to produce top quality wines and build on the success if their forebears. They are arguably most famous for their superb, long-lived Hunter Valley Semillons.

The grapes for the Rufus Stone Shiraz are sourced from the Heathcote region. Situated 100 kms north of Melbourne, Heathcote is undoubtedly one of Australia’s most exciting new red wine producing regions. Tyrrells planted their Heathcote vineyard in 1994 on the ancient russet red Cambrian soil, which is found at the foot of Mt Camel at the southern end of the Colbinabbin Range. Individual blocks of grapes were harvested and transported to Tyrrell’s Hunter winery in the cool of the night, with the temperatures usually below 100C. The batches were then fermented separately in a combination of open and closed fermenters after gentle destemming, producing 14 cuvées, all having slightly different handling (pressed straight to wood, some with extended skin contact, some with whole fruit). The wines were matured in predominately French oak barriques (20% new) in Tyrrell’s temperature-controlled barrel shed at 16˚C for 18 months. During this period they were racked three times.

Tyrrells Rufus Stone range is named after The Rufus Stone. The Rufus Stone marks the accidental killing of King William Rufus by Sir Walter Tyrrell. The story goes that an arrow was shot, supposedly at a stag, by the Frenchman Sir Walter Tyrrell but the arrow struck an oak tree and ricocheted off it straight into the chest of the king, killing him there and then. Sir Walter then fled to Normandy!