Sami-Odi Hoffmann Dallwitz Syrah 2022

Description

Product Description: To make this wine sites, barrels, vine age and even vintages are catalogued and tirelessly workshopped, the resultant blends are a snapshot of vintage across sites. The 2022 Hoffmann Dallwitz is a multi-vineyard, prime cask selection from DW-OLD (planted between 1888–1912), ER-27 (planted 1927) & DW-95VSP (planted 1995). 24 Burgundian Barrels (228L Pieces) were gently assembled and bottled during the spring of 2023 after enduring a 76-week elevage. Bottles were filled without filtration, fining or sparging (the removal of naturally occurring oxygen and C02) and all transfers were completed via gravity prior to bottling. This wine is begging for a few more months rest and will then cellar for as long as your taste desires. It adores air and will continue to unfurl over many days if kept in cool conditions. Yields ranged between 35 and 51 hectolitres per hectare. 6485 bottles were filled. Maker: Working exclusively with shiraz from the coveted Hoffmann Vineyard for his label, Sami-Odi, Fraser ley has reshaped the very essence of Barossa wine’s potential. Earlier in Fraser’s career he completed a bachelor’s degree in Spatial Design, Fine Art & Design at home in Auckland, Fraser McKinley moved to Sydney. After working a vintage in Barossa his career trajectory firmly set on the course of wine. Wasting no time, his winemaking apprenticeship was at Torbreck and the Standish Wine Co., working over a decade as assistant winemaker between the two. Life took a remarkable turn for Fraser, while still at Torbreck, when he approached legendary growers Adrian and Jeff Hoffmann to lease a small section of vines to fully understand what it is to care for them, to make wine in the vineyard. With a bit of supervision and plenty of advice, they let him manage four rows of younger vines in their Dallwitz Vineyard – acquired in the 1940s but with many vines planted in the 1880s. Although the Hoffmanns were close to organic in practice, Fraser became rigorously organic in that section. He subsequently expanded his reach into other sections of the Dallwitz Vineyard, occupying small blocks with differing soil types, aspects and vine ages, some over 100 years. In the winery, Fraser is more interested to discuss the virtues of blending than he is about winemaking. His process is exhaustively manual, with small whole-bunch ferments, and no additions aside from a touch of sulphur. Some ferments are open, and some locked up for carbonic maceration, before basket pressing into neutral oak. The wines are bottled by gravity un-fined and unfiltered. His aim with making was always to be as simple as possible, traditional if you like, and that has not changed. In 2014 he was crowned Young Gun of Wine. Vineyard: Today, in addition to the organic farming methods, Fraser works hard in the vineyard to be able to pick early, by practising shoot and crop thinning essential to getting ripeness of flavours and phenolics, while preserving crunch and freshness. Fraser manages small plots of vines (some from the 1880s), which he tends with organic principles. Yields are miniscule ranged between 35 & 51 hectolitres per hectare. Tasting Notes: Nose – Choc-Cherry, Aussie Scrub, Salted Liquorice Scents and flavours of choc-cherry, oyster sauce, black pepper, anise, salted liquorice, faint Aussie bush characters going on in between bouquet and palate Palate – The texture is slippery and deeply flavoured yet seems to lift of fine, powdery tannin and blood orange and amaro-like characters. It’s a pleasingly bitter wine, a touch alpine, tannins understated but elegant and high quality; teroldego or mondeuse anyone? Finish – Sweet Spice, Alpine Herbs, Earth Spicy sweetness in the finish, with powdery fine tannins, and savoury herbal lift. Scents and flavours of choc-cherry, oyster sauce, black pepper, anise, salted liquorice, faint Aussie bush characters going on in between bouquet and palate. The texture is slippery and deeply flavoured yet seems to lift of fine, powdery tannin and blood orange and amaro-like characters. It’s a pleasingly bitter wine, a touch alpine, tannins understated but elegant and high quality; teroldego or mondeuse anyone? Perhaps the sweetness of the finish the only quibble, but so very passing amongst the pleasure on hand here. – Mike Bennie, The Wine Front, 95 Points. The Finer Details Style –