Bannockburn De La Roche Shiraz 2013

Planted in 2007, this tiny vineyard is littered with volcanic rocks (hence the name) and lies on the plateau above the De La Terre slope—essentially making it a westerly extension of the Serré vineyard. It was originally planted with various clonal cuttings from Best’s and Tahbilk on a mix of rootstock and own roots. Holmes only uses the Best’s clone in this bottling today and the rest of the site has been grafted over to Chardonnay, giving Bannockburn a close-planted Chardonnay block (named Grigsby after Bannockburn’s long-standing vineyard manager). The density is 10,000 vines per hectare in 1.2m rows x 1.0m vine spacing, on a north-south row exposition.