Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Another topflight Elderton in stunning shape. This has a sense of measure and compactness that really impresses. Ripe blackberries and plums meet toasty oak and mocha with a smoky thread. A savory and brooding finish. This is well buttoned-up. Drink or hold.
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Wine & Spirits
There’s an explosive power to this wine, taking the tannins of old wood, black cherry skins and black olives toward the welcoming embrace of the fruit. The structure has a serious depth to it, architecturally vertical and extensive enough to keep all the weight and power of the fruit from crashing down. Impressive and luscious, needing time in the cellar to reach its peak.
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Wine Spectator
Sourced from water-friendly, gnarled shiraz vines, the bottle is the sort that you hope for in a hotel sans gym! The wine is similarly impressionable: rich and glossy; polished beautifully by a piste of massaged tannins, oak endowment and dutiful acidity. Pulpy! The flavours are strongly regional: dark plum, fruitcake spice and beef bouillon to coffee-marinated bbq ribs, presumably from barrel fermentation and extended lees handling. Salacious, but delicious!
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A blend of Nuriootpa and Greenock fruit went into the 2016 Neil Ashmead Grand Tourer Shiraz, which was aged in 50% to 60% new French oak. It doesn't come across as that oaky, instead showing scents of peppery spice and roasted meat, which lend a savory edge to the raspberry fruit. It's medium to full-bodied and a bit tart and open-knit, suggesting early consumption.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Historically and presently the most important wine-producing region of Australia, the Barossa Valley is set in the Barossa zone of South Australia, where more than half of the country’s wine is made. Because the climate is very hot and dry, vineyard managers work diligently to ensure grapes reach the perfect levels of phenolic ripeness.
The intense heat is ideal for plush, bold reds, particularly Shiraz on its own or Rhône Blends. Often Shiraz and Cabernet partner up for plump and powerful reds.
While much less prevalent, light-skinned varieties such as Riesling, Viognier or Semillon produce vibrant Barossa Valley whites.
Most of Australia’s largest wine producers are based here and Shiraz plantings date back as far as the 1850s or before. Many of them are dry farmed and bush trained, still offering less than one ton per acre of inky, intense, purple juice.