2017 The Factor Shiraz 750 Ml

Torbreck Vintners was founded by David Powell in 1994. The roots go back to 1992 when Dave, who was then working at Rockford, began to discover and clean up a few sections of dry-grown old vines. Near lifeless, he nurtured them back to health and was rewarded with small parcels of fruit that he made into wine. Dave was also able to secure a contract for the supply of grapes from a run-down but ancient Shiraz vineyard. He managed to raise enough money to share-farm the vineyard, which has enabled Torbreck to use fruit from the very best vineyards in the Barossa Valley. The Torbreck endeavour is based around the classic Barossa Valley varietals of Shiraz, Grenache and Mataro, and a love for the wines of France’s Rhone Valley. More recently, Dave has tried his hand at making white wine. For the past two years he has produced a blended white consisting of Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne.

Many of these vineyards were planted in the 19th century and because of South Australias far-sighted quarantine policy, were not affected by the phylloxera outbreak that ravaged the vineyards of the world in the 1880s. They survive on their own roots more than a century later as clonal time capsules.The reputation of the Barossa as the pre-eminent red wine growing region of Australia rests firmly on wines such as this.