Tasting notes from the winery for Kalleske Zeitgeist Shiraz 2020

Zeitgeist: the spirit of the time; general trend or characteristic of a particular period in time.

2020 Zeitgeist Shiraz is deep purple-black in colour.

Aromatics leap from the glass with a fresh grapey bouquet of ripe plum, cinnamon spice, blackberry jam, violets and perfume.

The palate is full-bodied and full-flavoured.  It is fresh and bright with depth and intensity.  Rich blue and black fruits dominate.  Smooth and rich, it has underlying chalky grape tannins adding structure.   The wine shows youthful energy and inherent harmony throughout.  It has an extremely lengthy finish, with the expressive fruit purity lingering for a long time.  A strikingly complex wine for the age, Zeitgeist is enjoyable now with its primal characters but is powerful enough to cellar. 

Growing Season

Vintage 2020 has delivered wines of amazing quality.  However, quantity is very limited, with it being one of the lowest grape yields ever in the Barossa at around 50% of average.  Yields were dire due to a combination of early mild frost conditions, then a notably windy period (45% windier) around flowering leading to poor set (not many berries) followed by some hot days in November and an overall dry growing season (34% down).  Notably, quality is of the highest echelon with rich colours and intense robust flavours.     

Vineyard

The Kalleske vineyard is a diverse mix of 120 acres of vines spread over the 500 acre farm.  Shiraz dominates the plantings and multiple Shiraz blocks spanning from 1905 to 1998 were blended to make this wine.  Shiraz from these blocks will go into the usual Kalleske Eduard, Greenock, Moppa and Clarry’s wines.  All Shiraz vines are low yielding and soils are typically shallow sand with excellent clay subsoil.

Winemaking

The Shiraz blocks were harvested over numerous weeks from February 26th through to March 13th.  Each batch was separately destemmed into an open top fermenter where it was native yeast fermented for 7-10 days on skins with hand pumpovers employed twice daily.  The musts were pressed and a portion of each lot was set aside in stainless tank to create this Zeitgeist blend.  Following settling, the young wine was bottled in early June, without sulphur dioxide, to capture the vibrancy and primacy of the vintage.  

Technical Details
Alcohol: 14.5%
Region: Greenock, SA
Wild fermented on skins for 10-12 days
Organic
Biodynamic
Vegan Friendly
No added sulphites

(SKU: KA_ZEI_20)