2024 Hay Shed Hill Wines Block 1 Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon

Hay Shed Hill is one of a small and prestigious group of pioneer vineyards that have established Margaret River’s reputation as a worldclass wine producing region. Located in the heart of the Willyabrup Valley, the premier sub-region of Margaret River, The Hay Shed Hill Block Series wines are made from small parcels of fruit from individual blocks on the vineyard to showcase the best of Hay Shed Hill.Block 1 consists of some of the oldest Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes in Margaret River. On a steep gravelly slope these old drygrown vines produce a very small crop of bright and varietally expressive Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc with a depth of flavour and intensity rarely seen in these varieties.VINTAGE: Records show that there has never been anything like the vintage of 2024 in Margaret River. In an age where we constantly talk about climate change the summer of 2024 stands out as extraordinary. The vintage of 2024 was one of the warmest vintages but even more so it was the driest vintage that we can see onrecord. The Hay Shed Hill vineyard got a little bit of rain in early October 2023 and then nothing at all for seven months.On observation of the conditions after the event we can see that temperatures were not extreme, it was the relentless nature of everyday being warm to very warm all day, from early morning to late night with not even a bit of drizzle or a cooler change. What impressed me most about the Hay Shed Hill vineyard this season was its ability to defy the conditions. Hay Shed Hill is not irrigated, the obvious inference would be that in a dry severe season like this one that the vines would suffer and struggle to get through the summer and produce fruit. In fact, it is just the opposite. With our wonderful deep Karri Loam soils and fifty years of dry-growth the Hay Shed Hill vines have deep and extensiveroots that allows them to exploit moisture from deep in the soil profile, much deeper than vines that have been established with constant use of irrigation, these vines have never had the need to establish deep root systems and are therefore more vulnerable in dry summers. It is in fact counter intuitive.The Hay Shed Hill vines powered through the vintage, low yields of course, given how dry it was, but excellent and well-balanced fruit across the board. White wines such as Chardonnay and the Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc were fresh and vibrant. It is early days to assess the reds but the obvious signs such as colour and depth appear to promise excellent results.WINEMAKING: Only the best ‘free run’ component of the juice was used resulting in the finest and brightest fruit expression with the least amount of phenolic impact. The juice was fermented in French oak barrels, no new oak was used so as to ensure that oak flavours and aromas were not dominant characters in the wine. The wine was matured in barrel for 8 months before clarification and bottling.