Autumn 2023 Collection

We have another six wines that I am sure that you will enjoy (as I already have).

2021 was a great vintage in the Barossa, one that many of the winemakers have called a one-in-one-hundred-year vintage. Good spring rains meant that the growing season kicked off with good soil moisture levels followed by a warm, dry growing season. The result was flavours, colours (in reds) and overall quality is exceptional. In this pack, we have four 2021 vintage wines.

We featured the Hayes Family Wines 2018 Ancestor Shiraz in the last pack. My first pick was an earlier vintage of "The Marcus" but they said, "wait for the 2021 release as it is outstanding". Well, it's now been released and we are fortunate enough to include this limited-release wine to the Club.

This is a wine of power and richness. It is a big wine and is a meal in a glass. The fruit came from the historic Schulz Home vineyard that has been farmed for over 150 years by the Schulz family. The wine has powerful and dense black and blue fruit balanced with abundant tannins. Whilst this wine will cellar very well, it is drinking beautifully now.

Once again, an absolutely brilliant example of a Barossa Shiraz in one of the best vintages ever made from fruit from very old vines. The wine has an aroma of lifted perfume, with spicy fresh berry fruit and flavours of mulberry and plumb intermingled with elegant oak that combines with the tannins to give a great texture. The wine has depth, richness and a long finish. It was awarded 95 points from Halliday and described as a brilliantly well-made wine by The Vintage Journal.

This wine is a flagship wine for Purple Hands and is made from fruit from 140-year-old vines. Medium-deep crimson. Classical grenache with lovely musky plum strawberry herb garden, and a hint of star anise aromas. Beautifully concentrated wine with ample juicy plum, strawberry fruits, fine persistent lacy / graphite textures, and lovely quartz-like acidity. Really delicious wine with superb definition and completeness. Awarded a Gold Medal at the 2022 Barossa Wine Show

With each wine pack that we send out, we look to include different varieties that showcase what the Barossa can produce in addition to the world's best Shiraz. In this pack, we have included quite a rare grape variety called Sagrantino. Sagrantino is an Italian grape variety that is indigenous to the region of Umbria in Central Italy. It is only grown in small quantities, mainly in the village of Montefalco and the surrounding area with very small amounts in Australia and the US. It is a low-yielding variety with thick skins and consequently high tannins. Lou Miranda was one of the first to plant Sagrantino in Australia in 2009.

The wine has aromas of dried cherry, cranberry, mocha peppermint and thyme (a lot's going on). The flavour is rich, ripe fruit and savoury spice and mocha. The wine pairs well with sweeter food (think Gnocchi with blue cheese sauce).

This is one wine that I picked correctly from a blind tasting as I love its distinctive flavour.

Long-time members of the Club will know that Gibson Wines are often featured, as they are a favourite. In this pack, we feature a special limited-release wine of only 500 cases that was created in partnership with Adelaide's Weber Grill Academy. The limited-release Smokey Oak Shiraz was created specifically to complement barbecue foods and not just be a "BBQ Red" quaffer.

The wine combines several small parcels of fruit grown in the Northern Barossa. Individual barrels from the 2020 vintage that showed plush, generous fruit and toasty spice complexity were earmarked for the Smokey Oak Shiraz by winemakers Rob Gibson and Adam Fiegert. The final blend was selected by Weber Grill Academy’s Jacinda Gregg and Adam Mizzi, with an eye on complementing a range of flavours that can be developed “under the hood” of a barbecue.

“From seared to sizzled, smoked to slow-cooked, barbecue flavours were calling out for a purposefully crafted red wine to complement them,” said Weber Grill Academy’s Jacinda Gregg, and this one certainly does exactly that.

The second of our "different" varieties is a Graciano. Graciano is a Spanish red wine grape that is grown primarily in Rioja. The vine produces a low yield and the wine produced is characterized by its deep red colour, strong aroma and ability to age well. Graciano thrives in warm, arid climates including the Barossa.

The Dewey Station Wines 2021 Graciano is an aromatic delight with bright florals and violets leaping from the glass. Followed by strawberry, blackcurrant jelly crystals, orange peel and sweet earth aromas. It was recently awarded a Gold Medal and the Barossa Wine Show and a previous vintage was a Top 5 Finalist in the Winestate Magazine Wine of the Year.