2000 Howard Park Leston Shiraz Tasting Notes

A nervous season for grapegrowers, 2000 saw the tail end of two cyclones pass through the South-West with heavy rainfalls in many of the best grapegrowing regions. The inherent reliability of Margaret River was again made apparent as the swirling angry skies past overhead and headed east with virtually no precipitation on the soft ripening fruit. Ripening conditions in Margaret River remained good for the latter part of the season giving some outstanding results in Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.
Shiraz from Station 4 on the Howard Park Leston vineyard was again harvested with intense colour and flavour, fermentation was in open topped tanks with some addition of whole bunches, followed by 18 months maturation in new and 1 year old French oak barriques. The wine was given a light filtration, no fining was required.

The 2000 Howard Park ‘Leston’ Shiraz has a vibrant deep plum colour with a youthful purple hue. The nose is a generous fruit driven bouquet of violet aromas and ripe berries. The generosity of fruit aromas pushes the fine cedary oak into a background support act. The palate reflects the nose with generous fruity characters of plums and raspberries with a surprising hint of spice. Structure is given to a fruit flavoured fleshy palate by soft tannin from both the fruit and fine-grained French oak.

This wine has all the structural components to confidently cellar in the medium term (5 years).