St. Jakobi
2020 Shiraz
2020 St. Jakobi Shiraz
Our “St. Jakobi” Shiraz is produced from grapes grown on a small 5-acre (32 rows) planting of Shiraz vines planted by Ken (Uncle Ken) in 1975. Ken and Helen Semmler’s St Jakobi vineyard sits alongside the St Jakobi Lutheran Church and School 2 kilometres south of Lyndoch. This special planting of vineyard consistently produces high quality fruit year after year. The Shiraz from this block gives us fruit characters that are often reminiscent of spice, dark cherry and chocolate, and the structure, fullness, with the acid and tannin provide support for longevity in the bottle.
2020 was a very low yielding Vintage. Spring and summer of 2019/2020 here in the Barossa was extremely dry with only 30mm of rain falling during October through to early February. A very timely 28mm of rain fell at the beginning of February giving the vines a well-earned drink. It was just what the vines needed to keep them ticking to bring the grapes to physiological maturity without stress.
Harvest took place early morning on the 2nd of March, one month after the rain. Crop levels were less than 1.5 tonne per acre and fruit quality was just wonderful. Grapes were delivered to the winery in the cool of the morning, then passed through the crusher and destemmed to open top fermenters under the Shed veranda roof.
The grape juice and skins sat cold soaking for a couple of days before fermentation really got going. The cool steady ferment continued until Day 7 when 20% of the fermenting juice was run off to barrel to complete ferment, while the remaining juice ticked through ferment for a further two days on skins.
On Day 9 the remaining juice was separated from skins and transferred to a tank inside the winery with skins loaded into the basket presses. Skins were pressed and the pressings wine was returned to the same tank as the free run wine.
Day 10 the wine was transferred to a mixture of French and American Hogsheads, supplied to us by 7 different coopers.
This is where the wine remained for the next month while the Malo-Lactic fermentation took place. After “Malo” the wine was racked off gross lees then returned to clean barrels where it matured for the next 16 months.
The 2020 St Jakobi Shiraz shows mouth-filling generous dark berried fruit flavours with a fine, spicy drying grape and oak tannin finish. The full potential of the Shiraz from this “precious patch” of dirt is on display.
We trust you’ll enjoy it!
| Winemaker: | Wayne Dutschke |
| Vineyard: | Ken & Helen Semmler’s St. Jakobi Vineyard |
| Vineyard Block: | 1975 Block Shiraz |
| Region: | Lyndoch, Barossa Valley, South Australia |
| Harvest date: | 2nd March 2020 |
| Fermentation: | 9 Day ferments in Static Open Fermenters with twice daily pump overs. With 20% of the juice completing fermentation in oak. |
| Alcohol: | 14.5% |
| Oak maturation: | 17 months in French and American Hogsheads |
| Bottling date: | September 2021 |
| Cellaring potential: | Drink now or enjoy as a more mature wine for many more years |
