Yalumba’s Old Vine Barossa Shiraz: the verdict

Ahead of Yalumba releasing its iconic Barossa Old Vine Shiraz on La Place de Bordeaux in September, our Bordeaux correspondent Colin Hay was lucky to have a special tasting of the 2018 vintage in Paris. Here is his verdict.

Yalumba is one of Australia’s oldest producers, lying in the Barossa region which boasts the most extensive hectarage of surviving 19th and early 20th century vines in the world. The Octavius Old Vine Shiraz 2018, a “uniquely South-Australian” wine, the producer notes, is crafted from grapes sourced from some of the world’s oldest surviving planted sites, that date back to 1854  – a year before the famous 1855 Bordeaux Classification.

The wine is matured in a mixture of new and seasoned oak barrels in order to fully translate the typicity of the historical vineyard sites.

According to Robert Hill-Smith, fifth-generation owner of Yalumba, the 2018 vintage was a “glorious” one that is widely regarded as one of the greatest vintages in memory for Barossa Shiraz. It has produced “a wine that fully expresses the generosity and purity of the Barossa’s ancient terroirs”, he said, and is “powerfully expressive”.

As db noted at the tasting in Paris, it is “more restrained than you might imagine”, but with ” an impressive sense of structure”, with fine-grained tannins and “an immediately pleasing sense of tension between the richness and opulence of the fruit and the acidity and tannic grip”.

Tasting notes

• Yalumba The Octavius Old Vine Shiraz 2018 (Barossa Valley; 100% old vine Shiraz; aged in 100 litre French and American oak octaves; 14.5% alcohol). The oak is more restrained than you might imagine – it is, after all, named after the wood in which the wine is matured for nearly 2 years. Bright, fresh, quite lifted and both spicy but also crisp and enticingly herb-tinged. A little vanilla, cinnamon and clove, but also garrigue notes accompanying the baked plum, red cherry and plump red berry fruit. Soft, fine-grained tannins and an immediately pleasing sense of tension between the richness and opulence of the fruit and the acidity and tannic grip which both contribute to draw the wine back to the spine as it evolves over the palate. That gives this an impressive sense of structure, revealing its aging potential. Sapid and fresh on the finish. 95.

The company announced it would release in the ‘hors Bordeaux’ campaign in May, working with negociants including CVBG, Ulysse Cazabonne, The Wine Merchant, Twins, Sovex, Pardela Wines, and Louis Vialard, on the release of the wine.

The Octavius Barossa Shiraz 2018 can be purchased from select wine merchants worldwide, though Samuel Smith & Son and Negociants New Zealand remain exclusive distributors for Australia and New Zealand.