Winemaker Notes
Blend: 98% Shiraz, 2% Viognier
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Old-vine magic. Some even come from 1858. The decadence and dusty, antique aromas and flavors are very impressive, yet it’s not overdone. Licorice, dark berries, smoke and graphite. A blend of 98% shiraz and 2% viognier. Better in 2021.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2016 RunRig comes from a warm, dry vintage that was responsible for red wines of great power and presence. The rain that feel during this season was remarkably well timed at all points. Aromatically, the wine leads with all its inkiness and power: saturated raspberry, black cherry, pomegranate, licorice and star anise. In the mouth, the wine has a cocoa/chocolate sweetness and thick textural structure. This is a wine of intensity and power, and stylistically, it aligns itself with the 2010 vintage. This is a rip-snorter of a wine that will age for many decades. 15% alcohol. Rating: 97+
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Wine Spectator
Restrained and elegant, opening up with ripe black and red fruit flavors. Touches of black licorice and black walnut liqueur plump up the sense of concentration. The tannins are dense but polished, never getting in the way of the harmony. Elements of clove and tobacco emerge on the finish. Shiraz and Viognier. Drink now through 2039.
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Wine & Spirits
This is old-vine dry-grown shiraz blended with two percent viognier, aged for 30 months in French oak barriques, half of them new. As dark and inky as this wine’s concentration may be, it feels cool, zesty and elegant, with fresh black-currant flavors and a bristle of grape-skin tannins against the chocolate richness of the oak tannins. It’s smoky and spicy and hard to see into right now, built for years of development in the bottle.
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.