A short time after the news that the Rathbone Wine Group is now up for sale comes the sad tidings around the death of one of its key participants and a true pioneer in Victorian riesling and shiraz, Trevor Mast. A riesling devotee educated at Geisenheim who crafted many an elegant, complex example that perhaps was ahead of the market’s ability to comprehend, Mast was one of the fathers of the modern expression of savoury, fine-grained, cool-climate Australian shiraz. His 1994 Mount Langi Ghiran Langi Shiraz once shared the cover of The Wine Spectator alongside Penfolds Grange and Henschke’s Hill of Grace. Makes you wonder how things might be for Australian wine in the US right now had the Americans had then preferred Mast’s elegant Langi style to that of Penfolds‰Û_?
