Winemaker Notes
Color: deep purple.
Nose: dark berry fruits, blackberries, kalamata olives, plums, & black pepper.
Palate: rich, persistent & concentrated with flavors of blackberry, plums, dark bitter chocolate & cedar with a fine, grape tannin finish.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2005 Shiraz exhibits an inkier purple colour as well as a deeper, richer, more nuanced style. Cropped at .8 ton of fruit per acre, which no doubt accounts for its awesome concentration, it is even better than the 2004 and should be longer lived, evolving for 15 years.
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Wine Enthusiast
Owner/winemaker Peter Schulz has taken a little-known page from Hermitage, using a small amount of Marsanne to add a rich, glyceric mouthfeel to this impressively endowed wine. Savory, spicy notes give complexity to the ripe blackberry fruit flavors, which linger elegantly on the finish, couched in soft tannins. Drink now–2020.
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Wine Spectator
Smooth, polished and distinctive for its sassafras- and cardamom-scented blackberry flavors, lingering against refined tannins as the finish sails on. Best from 2009 through 2017.
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.