About this WINE
Tapanappa Wines
The Tapanappa winery is a joint venture established in 2002 between the highly regarded winemaker & viticulturalist Brian Croser (ex Petaluma), Bollinger Champagne House and Jean-Michel Cazes from Chateau Lynch Bages. The aim has been to produce unique Australian“terroir” driven wines from single vineyards that enjoy cool climate conditions at 450m altitude.
The Tapanappa name derives from a 550 million year old geological formation that underlies the Fleurieu Peninsula where the Croser family have a sheep farm and vineyard. The Tiers Vineyard, planted 1979 with Chardonnay, is the first vineyard planted in the Adelaide Hills thus pioneering the cool climate wine industry of South Australia.
The Foggy Hill Vineyard is on the highest point of the Fleurieu Peninsula and was purchased by the Croser family in 2003. It is planted with Pinot Noir.
Whalebone Vineyard is a cooler-climate vineyard in Wrattonbully (just north of Coonawarra) planted in 1974 with Cabernet Sauvingon and Shiraz. The soil here is terra rossa from the Oligocene era (over 35 million year-old).
James Halliday has rated Tapanappa as a 5-star winery in his Austrlian Wine companion guide.
Shiraz & Cabernet Sauvignon
Shiraz/Cabernet (or Cabernet/Shiraz, depending on which is the dominant variety) can be described as Australia's archetypal red wine blend. The blend can trace its roots back to 1865, when the famous Dr Guyot recommended it for the sunbaked vineyards of Provence. It became popular in the early 1960s and 1970s and came about largely due to the high demand for red wines and that fact there there was not enough Cabernet Sauvignon to meet this. At this time Shiraz was widely regarded as inferior to Cabernet Sauvignon and was still being grubbed up in Australian vineyards up until the mid 1980s.
The fleshiness and richness of Australian Shiraz acts as perfect foil for the more tannic and angular Cabernet Sauvignon and the blend is often matured in American oak, which adds notes of vanilla and spice. The proportions in the blend vary from 50/50 to 80/20 in some cases. It is seen across the whole quality spectrum in Australia and the blend is now been used in Languedoc Roussillon in France as well as in South Africa and California.
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Description
This is from the Wines of Terroir range from Tapanappa, substantially less expensive than the Single Vineyard offerings but still designed to express the individual character of the Wrattonbully sub-district. The blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon and 30% Shiraz. 2007 enjoyed a very warm summer and the fruit achieved excellent levels of ripeness, although the crop was small. The juice was fermented in open tubs of 1-ton capacity and received a 4-day maceration beforehand and a 9-day post-fermentation soaking in the sealed tubs. It was then passed to French oak barriques, 70% new, for malolactic fermentation. The wine spent 20 months in barrel before being bottled unfiltered.
On the nose there is a complex array of flavours with brambly, curranty fruit vying with smoky, spicy aniseed notes. On the palate there is fresh acidity to balance the sweet, concentrated fruit while fresh eucalyptus flavours help to bring a lifted quality to the whole. The alcohol (13.70%)is restrained in the context of some Australian reds and the overall impression remains one of restrained power with no hints of over-extraction or over-ripeness.
Tapanappa’s Joanna Wrattonbully Cabernet-Shiraz is derived from the pioneering vineyards on the unique red clay loam over the 34 million years old limestone at the Joanna cross roads in a climate ideally suited to this traditional Australian blend.2007 Tapanappa Wrattonbully Cabernet Shiraz has the ripe fruit flavours and texture of this exceptionally small and early vintage. Despite the ripeness the alcohol is in balance and the silky ripe tannins meld with the ripe fruit flavours. The wine preserves the elegant structure and the earthy, anise and eucalypt smoke flavours of the Joanna Wrattonbully terroir.
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