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Viticultural & vinification notes		Winemakers comments
Vintage conditions	Picked April 23rd in the cool of late April.	Colour Nose     Palate	Dark red with a red hue. Concentrated aroma of raspberry plums, Christmas cake with spice and pepper notes.   A full bodied intensely flavoured wine with a velvety mouth-feel. The palate is concentrated and ripe with sweet raspberry fruit, with plum skin, mint and stewed fruit. Some nice cedary oak is completely soaked up by this wines intense fruit. The tannins are dense but still soft and velvety and give the wine great texture and length.
Vineyard	Three Hills Hand pruned to rods Hand picked
Grape variety	100% Shiraz
Maturation	12 months in one to four year old French oak barriques and Puncheons
Wine analysis	Alc/Vol:          14.4 % Acidity:            6.4 pH:                 3.70 Residual sugar:<0.1g/l

The Three Hills vineyard is located in the southern extremity of the Margaret River appellation.

There are no absolute standards of grape varietal expression.  Each of the 10,000 varieties that we have at our disposal will reflect the environmental circumstances that are responsible for the growth of the plant and, more especially, the maturation of the fruit. In the far south western corner of Western Australia climatic  circumstances are driven by the almost unchanging temperatures of the oceans that make up more than two thirds of the surface area of the southern hemisphere. The air masses move from the Indian ocean onto the land and it is these conditions that drive fruit maturation for Shiraz in late April in the far south west corner of Western Australia. The vineyard is 10 Km from both the Southern and the Indian Oceans. Consequently, the expression of the variety that we see in Three Hills is different to anything else in Australia.

On the vine the expression of the fruit is akin to raspberry jam and in the wine it is liquorice and anise. In the mouth it is voluminous, friendly and long. The elements are savoury rather than floral. This is a wine subtle in character and friendly in constitution with great depth and length of flavour.

James Halliday: Medium to full-bodied; rich, textured blackberry, licorice and bitter chocolate; fine-grained tannins and good oak; excellent mouthfeel and balance. Cork. 14.1% alc.

Shiraz or Syrah is one of the oldest established grape varietals in the Cotes du Rhone region of southern France. There are competing stories abound about its origin. One legend attributed its arrival in France to the Phocaeans of Asia Minor, who supposedly brought the grape from Shiraz, Persia when they established Marseilles around 600 BC. Another story claims that Romans brought the varietal from Syracuse, in Sicily in the 3rd century AD.

In 1997, UC Davis grapevine geneticist, Carole Meredith, and a graduate student in her lab, John Bowers using genetic profiling techniques worked out that the shiraz grape very probably originated in a cross between Dureza x Mondeuse blanche. Both these vines are still grown in the South of France. So much for legend and stories.

There do not appear to be any near relations to shiraz as there are with the Bordeaux varieties. Perhaps its reputation as a wine, founded on the performance of Hermitage in France, is so old, predating the rise of the wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy, that winemakers are satisfied with what they get. So growers are careful to preserve the character of the grape by propagation from wood rather than seed. At any rate, there is much less interest in clonal selection with the variety than with others like Pinot Noir. Shiraz yields well, and yield is the first thing that growers look for. It resists odium, and gives very little trouble in dry climates.

James Busby collected shiraz cuttings in Hermitage and took them to New South Wales. He called the variety 'Scyras' rather than the French Syrah, probably adopting the regional spelling of the time. Its use spread quickly in Australia where it has come to be known as either 'Shiraz' or 'Hermitage'. The French persist with 'Syrah'. The Californians discovered twenty years ago that their 'Petit Syrah' was not in fact the French Syrah and they are busy catching up. The South Africans are very interested too. The whole story is well told by Jenni Port at http://www.winestate.com.au/magazine/article.asp?articleno=234

Hermitage was a wine known to the Roman writer Pliny 23-79 AD who was an early proponent of the notion that place and climate are the critical factors in determining wine character and quality. between 1700 and 1900 the wine produced on the Hill of Hermitage was second in price only to top growth Bordeaux. The English made the international market and hermitage was inaccessible to them. But Shiraz was often used to stiffen the Bordeaux wines. In France the wines of Hermitage and Cote Rotie have always been highly regarded. But you will not see Chateau with English or Irish names in Hermitage, Crozes Hermitage or Cote Rotie as you do in Bordeaux.

Today shiraz is also important as an ingredient in the wines of Chateunef du Pape, second in importance only to Grenache.

Shiraz in Australia. Climate determines style.

Despite the history of its success in France Shiraz is in fact more widely planted here in Australia and in much greater volume than in Europe. It is planted in a greater variety of environments, mostly much warmer than in Europe. Australian styles are different to those of Hermitage primarily because the latter enjoys much cooler ripening conditions, and reliably so, than most places in Australia. Of Australian sites Coonawarra, central and southern Victoria and the south coast of WA have similar heat loads during ripening to that in Hermitage. However, the transition towards winter is much swifter in the higher European latitudes. This difference in environmental temperatures is critical to flavour expression. French styles are not found in Australia. It is hard to imagine that the rich and elegant sweet fruit flavours that the variety generates in some years in the ultra late ripening and low yielding regions of central Victoria have any relation to the firm raisined styles that emerge from the warmer districts, the light elegant styles of Coonawarra in a cool year, or the blockbusters of McLaren Vale. As noted above, Pliny had worked all this out in 35AD. We will never produce ëHermitageí in Australia but we might produce something equally interesting.

The enthusiasm of Robert Parker for Australian shiraz has opened the eyes of American connoisseurs to the appeal of Australian shiraz. The American auction markets have driving a speculative boom that is of great interest to Australian producers. Parker has created this and we owe him. An emphatic difference between Australian and French examples relates to the Australian preference for American oak. My own view is that this oak has much too assertive in its aromatic character to be used on its own. This wood provides the ëtop noteí for too many big company wines from South Australia, so much so that many consumers think that it is the flavour of the fruit. Wine made in America!

Viticulture It has been a surprise and a delight to see how well shiraz performs at Three Hills. It's a star. Part of the secret is to prune it hard and provide it with a trellis that comprehensively splits the fruiting zone therefore supporting it's rambling habits in such a way as to maximize the porosity of the canopy. The structure then becomes a light trap. The fruit ripens to high sugars in the cool of late April. The plan for making exceptional wine begins with the needs of the vine rather than the needs of a harvesting machine. It is important that it should never be irrigated and like Cabernet, the leaves must be on the turn at picking date. Irrigation is not only unnecessary but undesirable in this environment. The vine is a galloper already and mightily drought tolerant.

At Three Hills, Shiraz has been a standout wine from the beginning. The 99 was well reviewed by Robert Parker (95 points) in the Wine Spectator and Huon Hooke and Ralph Kyte-Powell in the Penguin good Australian Wine Guide. The 2000 vintage has confirmed its pedigree and gets better and better as it gets older. The 2001 was not released. The 2002 has been judged top WA shiraz at the Sheraton wine show.The 2003 and 2004 earned gold medals.

I commend the judges who see the virtues of shiraz without an overlay of American Oak for their perspicacity and their courage. Unfortunately they are still in the minority and it is possible to see awards for the Three Hills Shiraz swing between gold and Bronze from one show to another. There are wave makers and wave riders with the latter prepared to depart from the conventional wisdom and the former sticking with the recipe no matter what.

The wine is different, a product of a unique environment, an authentic original. The wine is an expression of the fruit and the fruit is an expression of the place......and modestly, also our management decisions. How do we support the vine, prune it, water or not water, fertilize or not fertilize, select this block rather than that, the length of skin contact, the type of oak for maturation and a myriad of other important little things along the way.Experience is a great teacher.........but only if you have your eyes open and maintain your curiosity and interest.

Shiraz in Margaret River

Shiraz has not been much planted in Margaret River because in the early years it was not regarded as a suitable subject for refined company. Shiraz at the time was in surplus and thought to produce the vin-ordinaire of Australia. It had not yet been discovered by Parker and was out of favour. Shiraz produces a different wine in the north of Margaret River to that in the south. I am familiar with both. The particular challenge that it presents in a maritime environment is its propensity to accumulate questionable vegetative flavour elements, too easily mistaken for sulphides, acceptable to some extent on the Rhone, but very much out of favour with Australian show judges. No matter how generous, savoury, peppery, spicy, tarry and long is the palate, the slightly herbaceous edge is seen in the shows as a disqualifier.But that is a matter of regional preferences and preferences.One day we may grow up and accept the point that if its a good drink its actually a good drink.