Originally a single vineyard wine made from Shiraz and Malbec, Yellow Hammer Hill was created to supply restaurants with a wine that had all the hallmarks of Wild Duck Creek Estate. Since then, Yellow Hammer Hill has grown to be a blend of up to 10 different vineyards in the Heathcote region, and comprising predominately Shiraz, with varying volumes of Malbec and Cabernet Sauvignon. It is a wine that is supremely complimentary to most food styles.
The 2017 vintage Wild Duck Creek Yellow Hammer Hill is a blend of 82% Shiraz, 12% Malbec and 6% Cabernet Sauvignon and is purple in hue. It is bolder and fuller than the 2015 vintage, and giving plush primary red and black fruits. Think raspberries, blackberries and red apple. The palate is silky and supple with a delicious berry and redskin flavour, rolling into chewy tannins and milk chocolate hints with a long palate coating finish. Cellar up to 10 years.
Reviews
2016 Vintage - "Just a splash of cabernet. The rest 80/20 let’s say. Young Liam Anderson at the helm of winemaking these days. Some subtle shifts in the freight train of wine styles has resulted. This feels like an incredible bargain – a compelling wine, in a fuller style, for the bucks. It bests so many concocted, big reds under $30.
Lavish bouquet of dark berries, chocolate, jelly babies, blackcurrant pastilles. Pastilles to taste, light spice, satiny feel, fine taninns and a ripple of Jaffa choc-orange to finish. Really well balanced, gulpable fuller, fleshy red wine. Delightful."
93 Points - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front, October 2019, Drink: 2019 - 2030
Wild Duck Creek Estate is a small family-run winery situated 8km west of Heathcote, alongside the Wild Duck Creek itself. David (aka ‘Duck’) and Diana planted the first vines in 1974 and in 1979 named the first vineyard “Alan’s Cabernet Vineyard”, after Duck’s late father Alan.
The “Original Vineyard” was planted in 1988 on land owned by Diana’s parents. Traditional winemaking methods including hand-picking, open fermentation, hand-plunging, basketpressing, and long-term barrel-ageing are fostered, as is the use biodynamic principles on their own vineyards. Duck remains adamant however, that it’s still the vineyard and site selection especially, that dictate great wines.
Second-generation winemaking has flourished for more than a decade through Liam, whose methodical yet innovative approaches merge fantastically with Duck’s eccentricity – a humorous and brilliant concoction! The estate’s passion is to produce extraordinary wines of balance and power that enrich and delight the senses.
Originally just a Shiraz & Malbec blend, Wild Duck Creek added Cabernet Sauvignon to this wine to give greater textural diversity. The grapes are sourced from the same vineyards every year, fully and gently de-stemmed, hand plunged and basket pressed. The wine is then matured for up to 23 months in older French and American oak barriques, hogsheads, and large format vats, as well as some concrete vats for added complexity. Yellow Hammer Hill is a wonderful all round red wine to be enjoyed with almost any occasion. Winery Notes
