Langton’s Selections ^4Wolf Blass Black Label Cabernet Blend, Wolf Blass Platinum Shiraz Wolf Blass Bilyara (meaning ‘Eaglehawk’) was established in 1973 by Wolf Blass, a German winemaker brought out by Kaiserstuhl to run its sparkling wine production. The first winery was an old winery shed on 2.5 acres with a $2000 overdraft, achieving rapid growth through premium winemaking, ostentatious marketing and sheer guile. Wolf Blass was one of the early masters of wine marketing, his considerable winemaking, blending and wood-handling skills ensuring consistency and reliability across all quality levels. Wolf Blass is now a brand name within the Foster’s Wine Estates portfolio. For many years Black Label Dry Red, a Cabernet Sauvignon driven blend, was the main secondary market attraction. This is a wine that won the Jimmy Watson Trophy twice – back to back during the 1970s. The individual parcels of fruit are vinified separately in open fermentation tanks and then allowed to complete fermentation in French and American hogsheads. The wine sees up to 3 years in new American and French oak prior to bottling. Wolf Blass invented the term, "No wood – no good". If Max Schubert started the idea of partial barrel fermentation in red winemaking, arguably Wolf Blass spread the news. Certainly, the Hill of Grace style originated from a discussion between Blass and Cyril Henschke. This technique is used extensively in the Australian wine industry. Wolf Blass Black Label is substantially propped up by oak. In a high quality vintage, the fruit sucks up and integrates well making wines of superb richness and flavour. The Wolf Blass Platinum Label Shiraz (there have also been a couple of releases of a Platinum Cabernet) is a blend of selected material from vineyards across the Adelaide Hills, Eden Valley and the Barossa. The components from the elevated vineyards tend to be matured in tightly grained French oak. The Barossa Shiraz is matured in American oak for 22 months. This is a generously proportioned wine with dark chocolate/plum fruit profile and plenty of mocha new oak notes. The wine is very popular on the secondary wine market, but it has downgraded the reputation of Black Label. This is the problem with marketing wine like card services. However the wines at the top level, including the Gold Label Riesling, are bloody good and offer great value when compared to some of the hyped-up prices of cult wine and that ilk. Andrew Caillard MW, Langton's