Miles Mossop Wines Max 2017

The wine has a stunning deep garnet colour with a dark plum rim. The nose is heady with aromas of ripe fresh prunes dark cherries, cocoa and cassis. There is a certain spicy note reminiscent of tobacco leaves and aniseed. The palate is full and rich with savoury notes coming through.

The flavours are that of dark cherries, Christmas cake and dark chocolate the tannins are big and robust, which have a certain velvety texture. The finish is dry and textured.

This wine is a perfect accompaniment with meaty stews, grilled steaks and tomato pasta’s such as Parmigiano Melanzane. The wine also pairs well with hard cheeses.

All vineyards are unirrigated and produce low yielding fruit (4 to 6 t/ha) giving a pure expression of its environment. The grapes are ripened to peak maturity (around 25 balling) before being hand harvested and delivered to the cellar and placed in a cold store overnight at 4 degrees Celsius.

After de-stemming, the berries pass over a sorting table for the removal of all unwanted material; raisins or green berries. The berries then fall trough a crusher and drop via gravity into small open wooden fermenters. Fermentation takes place by the yeast, naturally occurring on the grape, and can take anything up to 14 days to complete.

Extraction occurs through regular punch downs. Depending on tannin quality, ripeness and development the wine may remain on the skins for an additional 2 weeks before pressing in a basket press.

Malolactic fermentation takes place in barrel after which the wine is racked and returned to barrel for further maturation.

Maturation takes place in small 225 liter French barriques of which 40% is new and lasts for 22 months with regular rackings. The wine received a light egg white fining before bottling with no filtration.