2000 Peter Rumball Sparkling Shiraz Winery: Peter Rumball Vintage: 2000 Region: Coonawarra Bottle Size: 750ml Variety: Sparkling Shiraz Price: $40.00 (out of stock)

Primary fermentation
The basewines are made as a normal dry red: crushing, destemming, fermentation on skins to approximately 4.0 Be, with the pressings added back to the free run juice. There is no extended maceration or lengthy fermentations. The acid and tannin levels may be adjusted depending on vintage. The wine is encouraged to undertake malolactic fermentation in the tank. After malolactic fermentation completion, SO2 is added to 50 ppm total. The wines are earth filtered, then transported to Adelaide for blending to develop the cuvee. Cross blending usually occurs to maintain the non-vintage Sparkling Red. Vintage Sparkling Red is from one vintage only.

Secondary fermentation
Pure yeast is used exclusively to establish an active yeast culture. Inoculation occurs at a rate of 4.0 x 10 x 6 cells/mL. The wine is brought to approximately 15°C at inoculation. At this point the acid is generally adjusted to 6.50 g/L. tannin adjusted, and finings added. After additions, the basewine is filled into heavy weight bottles for secondary fermentation. Fermentation is completed after approx three weeks. The wine spends a minimum nine months on yeast lees prior to disgorging. Time on lees depends on the final product. The Peter Rumball SB Sparkling Shiraz wine is a non-vintage wine and spends less time on lees than the Vintage Sparkling Shiraz. A specially prepared liqueur is added at disgorgement to give a final sweetness level of approximately 25g/L. The wine is then bottled aged for one month prior to labelling and dispatch

Good winter rains and a mild summer at Coonawarra once again led to an overall great 2000 growing season. More than normal warm weather in March 2000 gave early ripeness of the Shiraz, but the natural grape acidity was retained. This resulted in excellent fruit composition and therefore ideally structured basewines, and vintage was some three weeks earlier than normal. The best cuvee once again came from grapes off Dohnt's vineyard at Coonawarra. The wine was tiraged on 7th February 2001. Vintage 2000 wines are result of "three in a row" good seasons.