‘Hoffmann-Dallwitz’

Hoffmann-Dallwitz, named after the legendary Barossa Valley vineyard farmed with Adrian Hoffmann, is Fraser McKinley’s flagship vintage Syrah. It is a composition of his purist, most individual and prized casks from the delightful 2024 growing season. This wine is laced together from the two oldest plots within the Hoffmann families sunkissed Ebenezer earths. The majority of the vines were planted on their own roots in 1927 (ER-27 plot, 0.58 ha), with the oldest vines having been planted between 1888 & 1912 (DW-OLD plot, 0.775 ha). Fraser’s ‘simple yet attentive’ farming philosophy remains unchanged since his first vintage, but each year he learns more about the subtleties of Adrian Hoffmann’s vineyard. He picks some parcels of the biodynamically farmed vineyard early for acidity and drive and a few picked much later providing that definitive Barossa richness. He remains prudent in the vineyard with labor intensive farming and is vigilant not just during the growing season but during the ‘regrowth’ season with all pruning cuts made amid descending lunar cycles, producing healthy canes, balanced clusters and small berries with resilient skins in the summer. All of this work results in the harvest of healthy fruit early in the season that requires no adjustments and little intervention. Yields in 2024 ranged from 27-41 hectolitres per hectare.

The grapes were hand-harvested and hand-sorted back at the winery. The carefully selected whole-clusters were placed into closed stainless-steel fermenters where they fermented carbonically without any additions. After 18-27 days on skins, Fraser gently stomped on the ferment daily for two weeks.  The juice was then basket pressed into just 19 Burgundian pièces (25% of which were new) for maturation. Primary and malolactic fermentation finished naturally in barrel to encourage the retention of naturally occurring carbon dioxide (a natural preservative and antioxidant). The wines were not racked during their élevage and remained on their lees until the barrels were selected and blended. After 18-19 months in barrel, the wine was racked to tank to naturally settle and was bottled in the spring of 2025. Bottles were filled without filtration, fining or sparging (the removal of naturally occurring oxygen & C02) and all transfers were completed via gravity prior to bottling. The only small addition was sulfur.