Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz

Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz is a premium Australian red blend that captures the refined power and elegance of South Australia’s most compelling cool-climate terroirs. This wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon grown on the iconic Whalebone Vineyard in Wrattonbully, with Shiraz sourced from Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills – uniting two exceptional sites in a seamless expression of structure, depth, and grace.

Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz Winemaking

Both grape varieties for the Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz are vinified separately, but using the same method – with minimal intervention, gravity-fed traditional winemaking.

• Grapes were destemmed and gently crushed.
• The must underwent cold soaking on skins for 2 days before the start of fermentation.
• Once fermentation began, the must was hand-plunged daily, fully immersing the skins in the fermenting juice.
• Alcoholic fermentation lasted 11 days, followed by a further 7 days of post-fermentation maceration on skins under inert gas cover.
• The wines were gently pressed off skins and immediately gravity-fed into French oak barriques (50% new, 50% single-use) for malolactic fermentation.
• After malolactic fermentation was completed, the wines were racked off gross lees and returned to the same barriques for 18 months of maturation.
• The wines were clear-racked and blended (around 87% Cabernet Sauvignon and 13% Shiraz).
• The finished wine was bottled in January 2020
• Approximately 600 cases were produced.

Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon & Mount Barker Shiraz

The Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is hand-harvested under the cover of night and transported directly to the Tapanappa Winery in the Piccadilly Valley, preserving the freshness and integrity of the fruit. The Tapanappa Shiraz is hand-harvested from Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills, one of South Australia’s most celebrated cool-climate wine regions.

The Whalebone Vineyard was established in 1974 in the Wrattonbully wine-growing region of South Australia, planted with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc by some of the region’s pioneering winemakers. Wrattonbully is renowned for its limestone-rich soils and ability to produce world-class Cabernet Sauvignon, and Whalebone Vineyard stands as one of its most historically significant sites.

The vineyard takes its distinctive name from a remarkable discovery: a 35-million-year-old whale skeleton found in a limestone cave beneath the vines – a reminder of the ancient seabed origins of the region’s iconic terroir.