Gaelic Cemetery Wines is a joint venture between Pikes Wines and Barletta Bros. The brief for the venture is simple and that is to craft small volumes of a super premium, single vineyard-single varietal Clare Valley wine that best reflects the vintage, varietal and uniqueness of place.The joint venture and label are named after the originating vineyard site on Gaelic Cemetery Road, next to the historic cemetery of the region’s Scottish pioneers. The label design reflects the simplicity and minimal intervention approach that is taken with the wine. The central image of the thistle is taken from one of the original headstones in the cemetery itself.The vineyard site is located approximately 3km north of the township of Clare in a secluded valley of the Clare Hills. The property is owned and operated by Grant Arnold who planted the site in 1996. The Shiraz component of the vineyard is sited on the gently sloping, easterly facing aspect of the property. Here the hungry soils are gravelly loam, with limestone over red/yellow clay subsoil. After a couple of early vintages it soon became quite evident that these soils and the aspect of the vineyard were ideally suited to the growing of low vigour/low yielding vines. Over the first 10 years the crop level has averaged a tiny 1.9 tonnes to the acre.This vineyard is always one of the earliest ripening Shiraz vineyards in the region and mystifyingly produces fruit with both natural pH and acid analyses that can only be described as ‘beautiful numbers’. There is no issue with achieving full fruit maturity here.The Gaelic Cemetery Shiraz is vinified at Pikes Vintners Clare Valley Winery with the wine being made using a combination of traditional ‘old world’ and modern Australian techniques. Here the emphasis is on capturing the essence of the vineyard with minimal manipulation. The vineyard produces a naturally very powerful wine and minimal intervention allows this to be expressed. There is no added tannin and wild yeasts of the vineyard are encouraged to carry out part of the fermentation. Typically the wine will remain on skins for approximately 20 days.Gentle pressing at dryness is followed by filling into new and used French Oak 228L barriques sourced from Burgundian based tonelleries exclusively. The wine is then gently racked several times during maturation and will stay in barrel for an average of 24 months before final assembly and bottling. Minimal or no fining/filtration is practiced to protect as much of the vineyard character as possible. Gaelic Cemetery
