Product Information:
The 2022 season brought slow ripening in cooler conditions, creating a vintage with higher natural acidity, rich colours, and fine tannins. Torbreck's signature wine, The Steading, embodies the winery's philosophy. The 2022 blend features 50% Grenache, 31% Shiraz, and 19% Mataro. It offers vibrant aromas of red and blue fruits, including mulberry and cherry, with a more robust and plush palate than previous vintages. Sandalwood and other oak spices add to the wine's complexity. For maturation, it saw 20 months on fine yeast lees in large 4500L French oak foudre vats. Natural malolactic conversion occurred during time in barrel.
The Steading comes from multiple Barossa subregions - Gomersal, Lyndoch, Greenock, Moppa, Marananga, Seppeltsfield, and Ebenezer. The vineyards range from 40 to 150 year old vines that survived the worldwide phylloxera outbreak of the 1880s, and a century later, the vine-pull scheme in the Barossa in the 1980s.
Maker:
Torbreck is a winery on a mission to become one of the world's great wine brands. Since 1994, they have remained committed to creating exceptional Rhone-style red and white wines that reflect the very best vineyards in Australia's famous Barossa region. Provenance is everything to them, and they believe that the Barossa is the most exciting place to make wine in the world. With a European sense of tradition, Torbreck pays tribute to the vineyards with minimal intervention, creating wines of richness, structure and length that age gracefully. The multi-generational growers, whose descendants arrived here nearly two centuries ago, are the backbone of Torbreck's winemaking aspirations. They work in partnership with the people of the Barossa who grow their fruit, always aiming to get the very best out of their vineyard sites. At Torbreck, they constantly seek to understand the difference between all of these special places in the Barossa and how this combination of soil, climate and farming experience is reflected in unique grape flavours. They are simply custodians, enhancing the innate expressiveness of the wines and enabling them to reveal over time their individual origins and personality. Torbreck is actually named after the forest near Inverness, Scotland where the winery's founder, David Powell worked as a lumberjack after completing university studies.
Vineyard:
The 2022 vintage was characterised by above average winter rains making up for a dry autumn, leading to full canopies and healthy vines for the harvest. A severe hail storm across some parts of the Valley in late October resulted in lower average yields. The summer was remarkably mild with very few days above 30 degrees. Slow ripening in the cooler conditions made for a gentle and drawn out vintage season, resulting in wines with higher natural acidity, rich colours and fine tannins. The wines from 2022 will reward those patient enough to cellar them away.
Nose - Mulberry, Red Plum, Redcurrant
Intensely lifted red and blue fruits dominate the aromas of mulberry, red plum, redcurrant and red cherry.
Palate - Robust, Plush Red Fruits, Silky
The palate is more robust than past vintages with denser plusher red fruits and a silky mouthfeel and added weight that glides across the tongue.
Finish - Sandalwood, Cinnamon Bark, Star Anise
Spices like sandalwood, cinnamon bark, and star anise also add complexity.
Plum and fresh meaty aromas, spicy/earthy background, some grenache florals peeping through; medium-full bodied and a soft fleshy tannin texture. Very pleasing and drinks well already. - Huon Hooke, The Real Review, 92 Points.
The Finer Details
Style - Red Wine
Varietal - 50% Grenache, 31% Shiraz 19% Mataro
Country - Australia
Region - Barossa Valley, South Australia
Vintage - 2022
Bottle Size - 750ml
ABV - 15%
