The House of Bricks range is designed to be our big wines. As a result, the grapes for this wine were grown in McLaren Vale on the Southern side of Adelaide, my preferred place in Australia for big reds. We get the Shiraz super ripe before picking and transporting the fruit to the winery here in the Hunter Valley.

The winemaking is all about getting flavour and body out of the skins, so we soak the grape skins in their own juices for about 5 days before starting ferment. This is a technique called cold soaking. We then add yeast and hand plunge the grapes every 6 hours in small stainless steel tanks as the ferment commences. Towards the end of ferment we press the wine away from the skins and seeds and let it finish fermenting in new American and French oak. Different parcels are then blended to achieve a wine which has presence.

The House of Bricks Shiraz is a deeply coloured wine with a nose of coconut, coffee and blackberry jam. The palate is firm, but approachable young and as such this is a wine that can be drunk young or cellared for 10 plus years as you see fit.

Try it with a slow cooked tough cut of meat such as beef cheeks.