Product Profile
Laughing Jack Greenock Shiraz 2009
Full bodied, Dry, Red, Shiraz. Drink now or cellar. 14.5% alc.
Tasting Notes
This wine, cropped at very low yields, expresses aromas of black fruits, pungent anise and vanilla spice, framed by sweet, cedary oak. The palate has an intense, rich fruit presence, a tight core of acid, integrated oak with chewy tannins and a lingering spicy finish. Matured in 85% French oak Hogshead with 15% American oak. 85% Greenock Shiraz, 15% Moppa Shiraz.
Producer
Laughing Jack
The Kalleske family has been farming this remarkable Greenock vineyard since 1855 and Laughing Jack was formed in 1999. These wines come mostly from this site blessed with old vine, dry grown Shiraz planted in a contoured pattern. Low yields and careful fruit selection in the winery results in some of the purest Barossa Shiraz we have encountered. Winemaker Shawn Kalleske’s understanding of his vineyards is superb, as is his winemaking.
Laughing Jack Vineyard is a small parcel of the Kalleske's 85 acres of young and old vine. The soil here is well drained red sandy loam over a broken clay base. The vine roots extend deeply into the soil in search of water in this dry environment producing sparse yields of small berried clusters.
The vineyard itself is surrounded by stands of Blue gum and Red Gum trees (Eucalyptus species) which harbour the kookaburra, a member of the Kingfisher family. The nickname of these birds is the 'Laughing Jack' so named for their fiendish laugh when staking their territory. The resident Kookaburra family can be heard each morning at the break of dawn.