Chris Ringland has a lot to do with the way the world views the Barossa Valley in 2001. A New Zealander, he arrived in the Barossa in 1988, taking a job at Rockford shortly thereafter. He’s still at Rockford, where he and the team have developed a happy relationship that allows Ringland the freedom to follow his winemaking instincts around the world and to pursue his own wine brand, the cult Three Rivers label. Ringland is therefore the winemaking talent who translates Rocky O’Callaghan’s ideas of traditional Barossa style and wine heritage into the very drinkable and highly rated Rockford labels of the Basket Press Shiraz and Black Shiraz (non-vintage sparkling red). Add in his Three Rivers wines and you would already say his influence is considerable. But that’s only half the Ringland story. Until the 1998 vintage, which Michael Waugh took over himself, Chris Ringland was the winemaker for Greenock Creek (see page 12). He still retains a close, but arms-length relationship with Greenock Creek, and is certainly the key winemaking figure behind the incredible recent success of the brand. Furthermore, Torbreck’s Dave Powell regards Chris Ringland as the most important single influence in his winemaking (see page 20). Powell worked under Ringland at Rockford for six years before breaking out on his own with the first Torbreck wines. If ever there was a modern sorcerer in the Barossa Valley, Chris Ringland is that sorcerer. With the full blessing of Rocky O’Callaghan, Ringland made his first Three Rivers shiraz in 1989, sourced from ninety year-old vines grown at Marananga. The same vineyard was used for the 1990 vintage, a second ninety year-old vineyard at a cooler site of higher elevation in the Angaston hills being introduced in 1991. Both vineyards were used for the 1992 vintage, while in 1993 and 1994 Ringland only took fruit from the Angaston hills site. Both the 1995 and 1996 wines were made from Ringland’s newly acquired north-east facing Wilton vineyard, planted in 1910. The crop was deliberately reduced to exceptionally low levels in 1996. As reported in OnWine, Ringland created something of a stir by releasing the 1996 Three Rivers for A$535 per bottle (reviewed in Volume 4, Issue 6), a not insubstantial rise on the 1995’s ex-cellar price of A65. Robert Parker jnr recently rated it with a perfect 100 (OnWine rating 19.3, drink 2008-2016+). Despite some not entirely unexpected negative reaction in the media to the price, Ringland was astonished at the rate at which the wine sold out. Two-thirds were allocated for export markets, and the US allocation disappeared within three weeks. Incredibly, however, the Australian allocation sold out in two.
