Petit Verdot Ironstone
2018
Pirramimma was founded by Alexander Campbell Johnston in 1892 and has been owned and operated by the Johnston family ever since. The Johnston family arrived in South Australia in 1839 and in 1892 Alexander, the tenth of thirteen children, purchased 97 hectares of rich farmland southeast of the then fledgling village of McLaren Vale. He named his land Pirramimma, an Aboriginal phrase meaning "the moon and the stars." The vineyard soils vary from sandy, on the rise, to rich dark loam on the flat....
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Hand selected parcels from original plantings in the Katunga block from the mid 1980’s deliver miniscule yields of extremely high concentration. Barrel fermented 40% of the juice in new French oak barriques, with 25% matured in 2 and 3 year old French barriques, plus older oak for the other 35%, maturation was 28 months. This powerful intense wine displays a bouquet of blackberry, violets, Spanish olive, Dutch liquorice and spicy cedary oak, with hints of lavender and musk. The palate delivers blueberry, star anise, Kalamata olive, black cherry and bramble, all enveloped by firm-controlled tannins and savoury oak. This big, brooding Petit Verdot will require serious aerating to consume with food in its youth or will reward long term cellaring under the right conditions.
Hulking red with dry tannin ricocheting to all corners of the mouth, (thankfully) backed by a substantial volume of both curranty fruit and toasty/coffeed oak. The epitome of the 'cellaring style'. It needs to be left alone for some years.
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Long an advocate of this grape variety, largely a workhorse and back-blending agent, Pirramimma does a very good job. While inherently devoid of charm, petit verdot boasts a fine bone of gritty tannin. Almost Italianate and laced with licorice and tapenade, it corrals dark-fruit accents into a successful, savoury and nourishing whole. Structural mettle, its opus.
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This is an absolute giant of a red wine from the Fleurieu District in McLaren Vale. It's entirely petit verdot, a variety that used to ripen in Bordeaux once a decade, but that obviously has no issues with achieving ripeness in McLaren Vale, especially at Pirramimma where they have a great feeling for this variety. The wine spends 24 months in a mix of French and American oak that seems to have little effect on the boisterous, spicy, blackberry, boysenberry and black olive flavours that swarm your palate. As big as it is, the tannins are dense and rich with polished edges.
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A complex meld of French oak across age, provenance and size, placating searing vinous power. This is in the throes of ageing well. Aside from tangy acidity across the back end: sage and underbrush, mingling with anise, clove and an arsenal of saturated dark fruits.
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