Lily's Garden

McLaren Vale Shiraz

By visiting this page, we hope that you are either enjoying our Lily’s Garden McLaren Vale Shiraz or would like to find out more about it.

“South Australia’s viticultural origins began in McLaren Vale and our region’s Mediterranean climate continues to drive our region’s wine style and diverse food culture.” McLaren Vale

Lily’s Garden is the pick of the bunch from our growers’ McLaren Vale vineyards. Lily’s Garden is a generous wine with cascading blue fruits and a rich long palate, typical of the region.

McLaren Vale’s reputation as a wine producing area dates back to the late 1830s and it takes its name from either (depending who you believe) John McLaren or David McLaren of the South Australia Company. As with so much of Australian wine its instigators were recent immigrants; notably two English farmers from the noticeably vine-free county of Devon, William Colton and Charles Thomas Hewett. Drawn to the area by its fertile soils and the availability of fresh water, it was here that the two men established adjoining farms that would become the Oxenberry Farm which is still producing award-winning wines to this day. Initially the settlers’ focus wasn’t on vines but on cereals and cattle. Today, although it has over 7,500 hectares under vine and with demand for its wines at an all-time global high, it retains much of the innovative spirit that it was born with.

The first vintage of Lily’s Garden was produced in 2000, as one of the first wines in our portfolio and was simply labelled ‘Two Hands McLaren Vale Shiraz’. Proprietor Michael Twelftree’s daughter Lily was born in 2001 and the wine was lovingly renamed ‘Lily’s Garden to complete the series with ‘Bella’s Garden’. It wasn’t long until Lily quickly gained a following among wine enthusiasts and critics, admired for it’s blueberry, blackberry and chocolatey flavours, and its ability to age gracefully. Over the years, the Lily’s Garden McLaren Vale Shiraz has continued to receive high ratings and critical acclaim, cementing its status as one of Two Hands’s top wines.

The label’s blue colour takes inspiration from McLaren Vale’s close proximity to the sea.

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THE REGION & VINEYARD
SOIL
A mix of maritime and sedimentary sand-based soil.
VINE AGE 16-61
ELEVATION 75-320m
AVERAGE RAINFALL 500-700mm
SUB-DISTRICT Blewitt Springs, Clarendon, McLaren Flat, McLaren Vale, Seaview, Tatachilla, Willunga Hills.

VINIFCATION
Fermentated in a five-ten tonne open top fermenter, with regular pump overs (2 times daily over entire ferment) to control ferment, extract colour, flavour and tannins.

Average time ‘on skins’ was 10 days before the dry free run was drained to tank and the pressings combined. The wine was then racked to barrel, where malolactic fermentation took place. Lily’s Garden is bottled unfined and unfiltered.


MATURATION
Aged for 18 months in 15% in new French oak hogshead. With the remainder in 1-6 year old French oak hogsheads.

SCORES & REVIEWS

2024 Halliday Wine Companion

“The commitment here to showcasing Pandora’s box of shiraz is admirable, each cuvée strongly tethered to its respective region. Here, McLaren Vale fruitcake and baking spices, clove, star anise and boysenberry. The palate expands admirably, absorbing the kit of oak that tends to a feel of older-school astringency on other cuvées. The finish, pulsing, saline and long, shedding the obvious sweetness with air as the tannins grow in stature and grasp the wine’s scruff, imparting a confident augur of age-worthiness.” – Ned Goodwin MW
95 points Read on HERE