Menu
Menu
Tina and Brett
Torbreck Vintners is a cult winery in Australia’s Barossa Valley that has been producing intriguing wines for over thirty years. While Torbreck may be most famous for it’s ultra opulent ‘The Laird’ bottling, which is priced at $800 for the current 2018 vintage, this wine brand has a deep portfolio of Rhone-inspired offerings.
The Woodcutter, which we profile here, consistently receives scores in the low to mid 90s from respected wine critics around the world, and we could not wait to crack open this bottle and see how it compares to the Rhone wines that we love.
Torbreck Vintners was founded by winemaker Dave Powell in 1994. Shortly after the winery was founded, it gained recognition from some of the world’s most influential wine critics, including Robert Parker, who awarded The Laird wine a perfect 100-point score. Love or hate the style of wine that Robert Parker champions, his influence has the power to turn bottles from humble wineries into cult collectible wines overnight, and that was exactly what happened with Torbreck Vintners.
Under Powell’s leadership, the brand not only turned out a number of highly rated wines, but they also led the stewardship of some of the Barossa Valley’s most historic vineyards. This pet project of Powell’s had the dual interest in conserving heritage vineyards that had been owned by the same family for three and four generations but also ensured that some of Australia’s respected ancient vines continued to produce ultra-premium fruit that Powell could use in his wines.
In the early 2000s, Powell brought on additional investment in the form of billionaire tech entrepreneur Pete Kight, who founded an electronic payment system in 1981 called Checkfree. Pete has been keen to invest in wine properties in the last few decades, and his portfolio also includes Quivira Vineyards in Dry Creek Valley and La Follette Wines in Healdsburg.
The partnership didn’t exactly go as planned; Powell was ultimately removed from the company, and a new winemaker, Ian Hongell, was hired in his place.
Kight is an avid proponent of organic and biodynamic farming, and he also added Peter Hiscock, a biodynamic viticulturist, to the Torbreck team.
Ian Hongell has been the lead winemaker at Torbreck Vintners since 2016 and was selected for this coveted position in part because he is considered something of an old vine specialist in the region. In his early years in the industry, he worked harvests across Australia, as well as in Napa Valley, and Haut-Médoc and Rhine Hessen. Prior to joining Torbreck, he was the Chief Winemaker at Peter Lehmann Wines.
In an interesting twist, taking the job at Torbreck allowed Ian to work with a vineyard he had been intimately familiar with since he was a boy: his father’s vineyard! One of the grape growers that Torbreck sourced its fruit from just so happened to be owned by his family – a business relationship that pre-dated any relation Ian had with his new bosses.
The Woodcutter’s Shiraz has been in the Torbreck portfolio for around ten years. Grapes used to make this Australian red wine are sourced from newly planted vineyards in the Barossa Valley that have just started to produce mature fruits. A light touch is used to procure the clusters from the vine and throughout the fermentation process. This process begins with hand-harvesting and continues when the juice is open-fermented in the tanks.
Australia
Barrossa Valley
Shiraz / Syrah
15
Ian Hongell
62–68°F / 16–20°C
Burgundy
1 Hour
Drink now to 2035
Torbreck
Australia’s famous Shiraz wines are characterized as having bold palates, with muscled tannins, and powerful, concentrated fruit, and this example from Torbreck certainly fits that bill.
In the glass, the wine is an intense deep purplish-red. The nose offers pronounced aromas of stewed fruits in the form of black cherry, plum, and blueberry, and a complex mix of spice and earthy herbs. We picked up a veritable tapestry of aromas including pointed black pepper and licorice, slightly sweet vanilla, caramel, and coconut, and rich earthy notes of soil, mocha, and coffee.
The palate on this full-bodied wine mirrored the nose, and the medley of dark fruit, spice and earth presented big, pronounced flavors, and a long finish.
The 2021 ‘The Woodcutters’ from Torbreck Vintners, is the kind of wine we reach for when we want a bottle that can do double duty as an everyday sipper, and pair well with a relaxed meal at home. For the value and the quality, this entry-level wine from one of the best producers in Australia makes a strong case for Rhone lovers to look to Australia, rather than France, for their next bottle of Syrah/Shiraz.
