Torbreck Vintners RunRig Barossa Valley Shiraz Viognier 2017

100 points - limited                                                                           Low yielding, old and dry grown Barossa Valley vines are the cornerstone of Torbreck where traditional, manual winemaking methods and minimal intervention are combined to produce world class wines. One of the best Shiraz from Australia we've ever tasted!  98 Points Robert Parker: "As usual, the 2017 RunRig is approximately 2% Viognier. It spent almost 30 months in oak, 40% of which was new. Hints of peach or apricot appear on the nose, alongside notes of hickory smoke, cherries and baking spices. It's full-bodied and concentrated but supple and silky enough to seem lighter in the mouth, showing tremendous length and elegance on the finish, where it adds nuances of cinnamon and cocoa... ...I managed to squeeze in a couple of vineyard visits during my afternoon visit with the Torbreck team of Ian Hongell (winemaker) and Nigel Blieschke (viticulturist). At the Hillside Vineyard in Lyndoch, the core is an 1850 planting of Shiraz, but there are additional blocks amounting to 100 acres of the 300-acre property. The Hillside Grenache comes from a parcel planted in 1948. The dry-grown Laird Vineyard is the other Torbreck jewel. Originally planted in 1958 and purchased by Torbreck in 2013, this five-acre site in Marananga provides fruit for Torbreck's top bottling. Contrary to some claims, Hongell offered this simple retort as we looked over the year's young shoots, "It's not dead." Looking at the current lineup, there are a couple of gaps: in 2016, neither the Les Amis nor the Pict were bottled because they were smoke-tainted, according to Hongell. The 2017 was a cooler year, offering more perfume and spice, said Hongell. "We're very pleased with the power we've been able to build into these wines. We're absolutely in love with what we're doing, especially in the vineyards," he concluded."

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