Two Hands “Angel’s Share” Mclaren Vale Shiraz 2020

McLaren Vale is the birthplace of modern South Australia’s wine industry and home to some of the world’s oldest vineyards. Shiraz is the most important varietal for McLaren Vale; generous, plum-mulberry fruit profiles, sometimes chocolate/mocha characters with notes of earth and spice and soft, supple tannin.

Two Hands wine first started in 1999, when founders Michael Twelftree and Richard Mintz sat at a friend’s engagement party and decided it was time to make their own wine and market it on the world stage. The original aim was, and still is, to make the best possible Shiraz-based wines from prized growing regions throughout Australia. With so much Australian wine being sold around the globe under multi-region labels in a formulaic style, the intention was to break the mold and showcase the diversity of Australian Shiraz by highlighting regional and vineyard characteristics by allowing the fruit to be the primary feature of the wines. Their very first vintage was 2000.

Despite the winery makes many wines, they essentially came from the fruits of 4 different vineyards, owned and operated by the winery.

The fruit was crushed into and fermented in 5, 7 and 10 tonne open fermenters. During the peak of fermentation the batches received regular pump overs 2-3 times daily. The average time on skins was 15 days. Maturation occured in 12% new French oak hogsheads for 14 months, the balance in 1 to 8 year old. After maturation the final blend was lightly fined and unfiltered prior to bottling.