Torbreck

This Rhone blend now contains some Counoise to create bright acidity, and Carignan, which adds soft black fruit character. This has beautiful aromatic black fruit, and a lifted herbal complexity. This wine is all about softness and generosity, not structure. There's a velvet texture and bright, ripe fruit on the finish.

The high proportion of Grenache in this vintage, at 65%, gives a beautiful fresh red fruit character, but there are plenty of darker fruits, richness and broad tannins from the Shiraz and Mataro. Delicious now with a long juicy finish, this is a great buy.

Torbreck's classic and traditional Barossa Shiraz. Very dark fruit profile with soy, coffee, dark chocolate and star anise. This has 2 years in 50% new French oak barriques. This drought vintage in particular is textural and grippy on the palate. This has an earthy, iron-rich feel to it, almost Hermitage-esque.

RunRig has a fragrant, soft profile, with fine tannins and an ethereal poise, despite some serious power and concentration. This is all grown on the western ridge of the Barossa Valley. It's a blend of six vineyards, including what is likely the oldest Shiraz in the world. There's 25km between the vineyard sites, creating plenty of complexity in the fruit. It finishes saline and mineral, long and fresh.

Woodcutter's is a brilliant example of what Barossa does best and 2023 is a very good example. There's no lack of power to the dense, black and purple berry fruit here, and layers of vanilla, clove, pepper and liquorice. Wonderful spicy tannins, it's lifted with great balance and freshness too, which is ultimately what makes it a great wine.

RunRig is made from six parcels, with some from Lyndoch and some from Ebeneezer sub-regions. This is full of powerful and impressive lifted black fruits of blackberry, plum and cherry with underlying dark chocolate complex undertones and spice. There's a creaminess on the palate, with vanilla, cola and mocha, an d great depth of flavour and balance to the fruit. The tannins are powerful, layered and integrating well. An impressive RunRig.

Four vineyards provide the fruit for The Factor, including some very old vines of 120 years plus. It's a classic Barossa Shiraz, made just with French oak. Very expressive with lifted black fruits such as plum, blackberry, compote, vanilla bean, dark cocoa and maraschino liqueur. Complex, luxuriously dense and alluring. The mineral components highlight Barossa Ironstone, dried earth and eucalyptus. The wine’s voluptuous texture envelops the mouth with soft yet dense tannins and mouth filling viscosity. The flavours linger and the cleansing acidity polishes the palates gorgeous length and depth. Oak maturation is harmonious and well integrated adding to complexity on release.

Four vineyards provide the fruit for The Factor, including some very old vines of 120 years plus. It's a classic Barossa Shiraz, made just with French oak. The emphasis here is on richness and power, not least in the concentrated 2020 vintage where the yield was 60% of a normal year. There's a plush feel to the cassis fruit flavours and complex black pepper and milk chocolate notes. The French oak is bold now at this early stage, providing a lot of structure and vanilla flavour. The tannins are grainy, savoury and assertive.

The Descendant vineyard was planted in 1994 with clones taken from the vineyard that produces RunRig. There are 8 rows of Viognier, 4 at the bottom of the slope and 4 mid-slope. They pick together, part-press the Viognier and add the resulting skin-heavy portion to the Shiraz ferment. This is the most "Cote Rotie" of Torbreck's range, with opulent, dark fruits, black olives, and a long saline finish. Licquorice and sweet spices come through on the palate and the finish is seriously long.

This is mainly Roussanne and Marsanne, with the Viognier dialled back in recent vintages to provide just enough aromatic intensity and viscocity, without dominating. Full of ripe peach and apricot, with a pithy feel to the texture, and a core of more juicy fruit. The fruit character is just sweet enough to carry it through a long finish with more pithy, savoury notes. Don't make the mistake of ignoring the brilliant white wines from Torbreck.