The Next Level: Barossa

10/3/2015

Had a rather slow start into the day – some bacon and eggs for brekkie, before heading into town for coffee and WiFi. After getting rather frustrated with the WiFi connection, I started to work through my program for today:

First stop: St. Hallett winery

As I was driving, I only had two little samples – jumped straight away to the premium end of the market, wines that Alex Talbot suggested: the Black Sparkling Shiraz and the 2010 Old Block Shiraz. St. Halletts are famous for their Old Block Shiraz, and I had the opportunity to sample the 2010 vintage, which got their top end rating and is classified as a benchmark year with up to 30+ years of cellaring possibility. This one got incredible 97 points from James Halliday, with the following comments: “Old Block is the ultra-premium leader of the band (using old vine grapes from Lyndoch and Eden Valley)...[]... the product of an outstanding Barossa vintage...[] How can a wine so dense be so light on its feet?” Quite a statement for a $90 bottle of wine! Both really convincing!

2010 Old Block Shiraz - and the most stylish way to taste it

I totally know what he is thinking about ;-)

He was watching me closely when I left

Second stop: Rockford

Holy smokes, such an authentic, old place and great stuff! Again, straight away going for the top end products: the 2011 Basket Press Shiraz and the Rockford Black Shiraz, another sparkling Shiraz that was disgorged in 2014 and blows your head off. The lady at the counter suggested to have a Sparkling Shiraz with bacon & eggs for breakfast – sounds like a very South Australian concept to me, but might be worth trying at some stage! Both wines were the $60 price range and are, from my perspective, good Barossa value for money.

They were in full production when I was there - hand made, high quality stuff

As I'm not only in the Barossa for tasting wines, I went up the hill to enjoy the Mengler's Hill Lookout and the sculpture park. Lovely views over the valley and a bit of art:

Wookie is enjoying the view over the Barossa valley

Next stop was MeggieBeer's Farm Shop. Nothing to do with beer, but Maggie was a big star in Australia's food scene, author of several books, professional cook and I think she had her own TV show as well. There are may delicious products to be tasted at the shop and I bought a glass of Dukkah, some horseradish in a glass and a rather disappointing Cappuccino. Maybe my English is not good enough, but when I tell them to make it not too hot please, I don't mean the milk should be brought all the way to the edge of being burnt. Looking forward to Melbourne in this regard!

Nice stuff and Maggie's well know logo

the pheasant was checking out the car park

Then I went to Wolf Blass – a winery founded by Wolfgang Blass, a German immigrant, in 1966. Their relatively new visitor center is a great piece of architecture and personally, I really like their bronze eagle sculpture and the design of the visitor center. While it is a huge winery (catering for all market segments, from a $10 bottle of Yellow Label up to $200 Platinum Label, and has a massive visitor center, I picked the perfect timing around lunch time where I was the only guest. I had a great conversation with Graham, the facilitator of today's tasting, and ended up getting all their premium wines for tasting.

Wolf Blass bronze eagle

Wolfgang Blass, he is the man!

I started with the 2012 Brown Label Classic Shiraz ($50), a lovely, easy to drink Shiraz with grapes from McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek and Barossa Valley.

Then we got really serious, and I was presented with a sample of the 38^th vintage, the Wolf Blass Black Label 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz ($130). This is the only wine that won 4 the Jimmy Watson Trophy, the most prestigious wine award in Australia, three of them in a row.

Lastly, the 2010 Medlands Vinyard Platinum Label Shiraz ($200) was poured, a wine that might become their future flagship wine. While they introduced it much later than the Black Label, being a straight Shiraz it got very different characteristics than the Cab Sav/Shiraz blend. Awesome stuff. As Graham used to work in McLaren Vale for a long time, he gave me a list of good cellar doors to check out when I'm there. ;-)

Wolf Blass - Top end: Brown Label, Black Label and Platinum Label

The Austrian contribution: Riedel glasses

All 38 vintages of Black Label, starting with the 1973 onwards all the way up to the 2010, the current release

Wolf Blass Tasting Center - huge!

After a photo session of their tasting center, and a snack at the van, I went to Nuriootpa (local Aboriginal word for 'meeting place'), where I checked in at the caravan park. Leaving the van parked up, I walked into town to get two more tastings under the belt before retiring for the night.

Elderton Wines was first. A comparably smaller, family owned winery that does some really good wines. Chatting with the woman at the counter, I went through a lot of their offering. They are known for their premium wines, such as the 2010 Command Single Vineyard Shiraz or their Ashmead Cab Sav.

2010 Command Single Vineyard Shiraz - Elderton's flagship wine

Last stop for the day was Penfolds, one of the biggest and most well know wine makers in Australia. They are famous for their Penfolds Grange, a vintage Shiraz that sells for usually $600-800 per bottle which has been produced since 1951. A complete collection of Grange of all the vintages was sold for $660,000 in Dubai in 2014 according to Wikipedia! They have won over 50 gold medals with this wine and were awarded wine of the year.

Anyway, I went through many mid price range wines from Penfolds ($50-90) which they still consider to be in their normal 'Bin' range (above and beyond that there is still the Cellar Reserve range up to $240 and the Luxury range up to the 2010 Bin 170 Kalimna Shiraz for $1,800 a bottle (no typo!), different Grange vintages for $785 a piece and the 50 Year Old Rare Tawny for incredible $3,550 a pop).

Penfolds Wines

Icon & Luxury

Penfolds Grange

The wines were in general all good but from my perspective they were not as much value for money as what I've had at other vineyards. The friendly lady at the counter treated me to a sample of a 2005 Yattarna Chardonnay. While I'm no fan of Chardonnays in general, and in particular when it got matured in oak and has been in the cellar for a while, I had to admit to her that this drop was quite superb and very pleasing to my taste buds. Penfolds introduced the Yattarna to have an ultra-premium white wine that can be served along side a Grange. They usually go for around $150-200 per bottle from what I saw in my app. Ouch, probably the most expensive white wine I've ever tasted.

Unfortunately the clock hit 5pm and they were closing up before I got all the way down the tasting order, so I had to stop with the Bin 389. Bummer, it would have been very interesting to try the RWT or maybe even a Grange.