2002 was the sort of season in southern Australia when warmer regions produced fine, elegant, cool climate-like wines. Areas like the Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and warmer sites in the Adelaide Hills have developed exceptionally intense shirazes of extraordinary perfume and intensity. A measure of the vintage’s potential was made obvious recently when tasting a couple of 2002 reds from Torbreck. The Struie (a straight shiraz) combines the fragrance and cool pepper spices of the Eden Valley with the structure and ripeness of Barossa Valley floor fruit. Almost pungent in its fragrance of small dark berries and floral aromas, it becomes voluptuous and velvet-like on the palate, while a fine, seamless spine of silky-fine tannins brings it neatly to order. A very smart wine indeed, anything but a blockbuster, but steeped in delicious flavour. Rated 18.5, best drinking 2004-2007+, $46 ex cellar per bottle. Torbreck’s Descendant 2002 is a single vineyard blend of 92% shiraz and 8% viognier. The shiraz is pressed with the vineyard’s lightly pressed viognier fruit before the two varieties are fermented together. Here’s some truly magnificent fruit that entirely belies the tender age of its vines. Musky, meaty undertones give pleasing complexity to a fragrance laced with dark berries, plums and violets, backed by lightly smoky oak. Pleasingly, the viognier is difficult, but not impossible, to spot. Slightly jujube-like dark fruit saturates the smooth, silky palate whose tight-knit, drying tannins provide excellent structure and texture. Finely balanced, and certain to satisfy in the cellar. Rated at 19.0. best drinking 2010-2014+, $125 ex cellar per bottle. One of the difficult but necessary sides of my work is to criticise tall poppies when the occasion demands. Neither of these Torbreck wines are cheap, but rather than whinge about their prices, I’d rather revel in their quality and superb expressions of site and vintage. Having tasted and enjoyed the Decendant, I’m now more interested than ever in seeing what other leading vineyards and makers have produced from the warmer South Australian regions in 2002.
