2010MassenaMataro

Sans The Mataro is usually used as a blending component in Massena’s Moonlight Run blend with Grenache and Shiraz, however, a heat wave during flowering in late 2009 decimated their 2010 Grenache crops. Fortunately, 2010 was an exceptional vintage for Mataro – a very long, cooler vintage meant plenty of hang time for the Mataro to develop proper physiological ripeness. Normally Mataro alone can be a bit tannic and hard, but this vintage had more fruit, flesh, and spice. Additionally some good light summer rains towards the end of vintage helped avoid hyrdric stress and therefore any hard, dry tannins. Sourced from a single vineyard located just to the west of the town of Nuriootpa on the road to Greenock, it’s soils range from beach like sand at its northern end, through heavy red clay to rich loam at the southern end. This soil variation gives differing crop levels, berry sizes and ripeness levels which provide a level of complexity directly from the vineyard.