Light, bright yellow colour and a smoky, toasty-barrel, lightly-toasted cashew nut bouquet. The wine is intense and rich, mouth-filling and powerful, with a long finish, which is full and emphatic. Delicious fruit-sweetness and a clean, persistent carry that is pure, refined and thoroughly satisfying. Clearly the best of Oakridge's three 2016 LVS wines.
95 points, Huon Hooke (October 2017)
Super-fragrant and neatly integrated oak spices. This has an impressive, fresh, dark-berry nose that also offers very bright, fragrant lift. Some really fresh fruits, earth, spices and gentle tarry accents. The palate is seamlessly smooth, supple, fleshy and mapped out on fine tannins. Dark, toasted spices carry long and silky. This is elegant yet concentrated.
96 points, Nick Stock (January 2015)
Brilliant garnet/black colour in the glass. Seductive, spicy, red and black fruit scented wine. Perfume, musk, whiffs of graphite-like minerals. It’s a brilliant Barossa entry. Silky-textured, fresh, firm, long and dart-shaped in the palate. Pulls out some ripe fruit flavour and choc-milk tannins, but there’s an elegance and sleekness that is undeniably attractive. Finishes long with saline acidity and light tug of suede tannins. Sophisticated Barossa. Drink young.
94 points, Mike Bennie (April 2015)
Deep red colour with a purple rim. The bouquet is very floral, clearly revealing the viognier component. Soft, very ripe, fruit-sweet flavour with powdery tannins and some alcohol after-heat. Good, but an acquired taste.
92 points, Huon Hooke (April 2015)
Good colour; predictably intense and concentrated, with savoury black fruits, tar and earth; its Achilles heel is, without question, the increase in heat on the finish. Shiraz/Viognier.
90 points, James Halliday (January 2015)
Colonel William Light, the South Australian colony’s Surveyor-General, named the Barossa in 1837 after the site of an English victory over the French in the Spanish Peninsular War. In the mid-1800’s Silesian and English immigrants settled in the area. The Barossa itself comprises two distinct sub-regions: Eden Valley and the warmer Barossa Valley floor at 270m.The Barossa Valley enjoys a warm Mediterranean climate characterised by hot dry summers and relatively low rainfall. Cool sea breezes from the Gulf of St Vincent modify the temperature, however hot northerly winds can occasionally dominate creating considerable vine stress. Many older established vineyards are dry-grown, but supplementary irrigation is also extensively used. The valley is comprised of rich brown soils and alluvial sands. A long history of uninterrupted viticulture in the area means the Barossa valley is home to Australia’s largest concentration of old-vine Shiraz, Grenache and Mourvedre with many over 100 years old. Although most famous for Shiraz, the Barossa can also produce fragrant and deliciously fruity Grenache blends and beautifully rich, chocolatey Cabernet Sauvignons.
David Powell, a former lumberjack turned winemaker, established Torbreck in 1994. Since then, the tiny winery operation has grown exponentially, buoyed by the success of its highly opulent and perfumed wines. Torbreck sources fruit from a myriad of dry grown low-yielding vineyards located on the western ridge of the Barossa Valley and as far south as the Jacob’s Creek area. These include established century-old vineyards. It either share-farms or has full vineyard management control, ensuring optimum fruit quality, ripeness and flavour development. The wines are batch vinified in open fermenters and vinification incorporates a palette of winemaking options including pre-fermentation cold soak, extended maceration, partial whole bunch fermentation, warm and cooler ferment regimes and regular pumping over.
