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Viticultural & vinification notes		Winemakers comments
Vintage conditions	Mild ripening conditions with late season rain	Colour Nose Palate	Red with a deep hue and crimson tints at the periphery of the glass.   A complex aroma displaying red fruit, bitter chocolate, forest floor and black olive.   The palate is medium to full bodied with red fruit, green plum, black olive and attractive savoury flavours. A quite delicious amalgam of fresh fruit flavours with a spicy mid palate, and a long soft finish. A great wine to enhance the enjoyment of food.
Vineyard	Three Hills Hand pruned to rods Hand picked
Grape variety	Multi varietal blend
Maturation	In French oak barriques
Wine analysis	Alc/Vol:           13.2% Acidity:            6.5 g/l pH:                 3.55 Residual sugar:<.2 g/l

Tintanello is our name for a blend of Mediterranean red varieties.

One aim with this blend is to present a wine that is free of the herbaceous elements that we are familiar with in Margaret River.  We hope you appreciate the difference. This is not simply our version of a district standard. It represents a new standard.

Another aim is to present a wine that expresses fruit flavours first and foremost. Accordingly we prefer to use barrels that are of three to five years of age. 

The lands surrounding the Mediterranean Sea have cradled Western Civilization, the grape vine, and wine as a central part of our culture for thousands of years. The influences impinging on the area are diverse. The people have been mobile traders and travellers. Marco Polo springs to mind. Much of the area was dominated by Arabian influences from the seventh century. Equally diverse and interesting is the vine stock. Italy has 2000 varieties in a pool of perhaps 10,000 between Georgia where the vine is thought to have originated, and Lisbon. It makes you wonder why we in Australia know so very little of these varieties today.

The vines revered in the English speaking world are primarily from those parts of Europe that the English had access to, and the motive to promote. The Medoc is close to home and ruled from Britain at one stage. When Bordeaux and Burgundy were inaccessible due to war it was the wines of the Duoro and of Jerez that became well known. The Dutch, having readier land access to the up river parts of Bordeaux knew more about the wines of Libourne and the English little. It is the Americans who have pushed the price of Pomerols above all other Bordeaux wines. The Libourne district was ignored by the English because it was too far up-river.

The climate of Australia has much more in common with the Mediterranean and North Africa than Western Europe. Australia has embraced Mediterranean cuisine in the last 50 years.

Happ's 'Tintanello' celebrates diversity, and the possibility of discovering new flavours by exploiting a wider selection of varieties. We are on the brink of a new world of possibilities and this wine is a signpost in that direction. The blend originates in some of the many red varieties cultivated at Three Hills.

They are: Merlot, Cabernet, Tempranillo, Shiraz, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Tinta Cao, Graciano, Malbec, Gamay, Bastado, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, Carignan, Mourvedre, Grenache, Petit Verdot and Cinsaut.