Winemaker Notes
About The Colonial Estate
In the middle 1800's the Lange family settled from Bavaria in the Barossa Valley. The vineyard that they decided to plant was just off the main road of Nuriootpa. The vines have been dry grown since then and the grapes have gone into the great and good of Australia including "Grange". Like "Chateau Haut-Brion" the town has grown up around it and it is now an oasis of a vineyard with houses surrounding it.
Exile is 100% sourced from the "Lange" Vineyard, now a part of The Colonial Estate. The single-vineyard wine is made up of old vine Shiraz with some Mourvedre and Muscadelle. The age of some of these vines date back to the 1800's.
The wine is made in the French fashion – low cropping aided by green harvesting, handpicking into trays, and double-triage on arrival at the winery. The wooden vats – shipped from Cognac in France -appear incongruous in their setting. The wine is picked ripe and, after vinification, poured into pure new French oak.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The Colonial Estate's two flagship wines come from their own property. The 2006 Exile was sourced from a single 140-year-old vineyard with the blend consisting of 85% Shiraz, 10% Mourvedre, and 5% Grenache. Opaque purple/black in color, it exhibits a captivating perfume of toasty oak, smoke, black pepper, truffle, blueberry pie, and blackberry liqueur. Complex, silky-textured, and nicely balanced, this layered, lengthy wine will continue to improve over the next 4-6 years and have a drinking window extending from 2013 to 2026.
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.