The philosophy behind Black Label is simple: to take the year’s very best wines and weave them together into a synergistic whole, the resultant wine being greater than the sum of its parts. It’s about creating a wine with many layers of flavour in a complex composition of intense fruit characters, magnificent structure, a rich lustrous texture, long velvety tannins and a lingering palate. Harvested at optimum maturity and flavour, fruit from each vineyard was crushed, destemmed and fermented separately for 7 to 24 days on skins. The ferments were allowed to warm naturally, with plunging and gentle pumping over used to maximise colour and flavour extraction. Mid-ferment cooling extended fermentation, exploiting time on skins and accentuating line and length. Some batches stayed on skins to dryness, while others completed fermentation in barrel, allowing a balanced integration of oak characters and enhancing texture and complexity