Teusner 2011 Albert Shiraz 750ml

“Albert Shiraz is named after my Grandfather, Albert Alfred Teusner…a man I admired for his commitment and his persistence. Like previous vintages, Albert Shiraz is made from parcels of fruit sourced from a couple of our favourite vineyards….an old block at Ebenezer in the Barossa’s north west and another at the Barossa’s south eastern most extremity at Williamstown.

Coming off the back of the 2012 vintage which produced some of our strongest wines to date, we were sitting around quietly wishing that mother nature would deliver more of the same in 2013. But nature doesn’t work like does she!?! What she did deliver was one of the driest winter, growing and harvest seasons on record, making life extra hard for the vineyards, with a number of them failing to produce a crop. But the seasoned old vines took the tough conditions of the chin and produced a crop (albeit fairly small) of flavour packed fruit, impressive structure and terrific balance.

The older Barossa Valley vineyards typically yield fruit of concentrated flavour and soft, supple and velvety tannins that set them apart from the younger stuff. The Ebenezer block gives this wine its dark core and its muscle, with the fruit from Williamstown providing elegance, fragrance and spice. There’s plenty of blackberry, black satsuma plum, black cherry and cassis with great intensity and length. The ‘13 reds all show a power of flavour, but have great structure and balance.”