Signature Wines of South Australia's Iconic Producers

Grosset’s Polish Hill and Springvale are two of the world’s finest dry Rieslings and should be considered must-haves for the cellars of lovers of this style.

Grosset Polish Hill is produced exclusively from the eight-hectare estate-owned Polish Hill Vineyard (certified organic) in the Clare Valley. The gently sloping site is comprised of silt and shallow shales over a thin crust of clay and gravel. This overlays a bed of blue slate, estimated to be around 500-million-years old. As a consequence the fruit is pure, lean and austere with naturally-balanced acidities’. Its challenging rocky profile results in low yields with an average of two bottles of wine per vine being produced.

The Springvale vineyard was planted 17 years ago. Derived from the hilltop-sited, organic and close-planted vineyard, Springvale Riesling is fresh and minerally with lemon-curd/ lime/ chamomile aromas and voluminous flavours. A classic ‘acid cut’ runs through the wine giving purity of line and length.

One of Australia’s most prodigious Syrah, Clarendon Hills’ flaghip cuvee Astralis Syrah is fashioned from vines planted in 1920, and spends time in 100% new French oak. It is a timeless wine of unbridled power and elegance, with superb purity, great definition, and a refreshing, zesty acidity that buttresses its enormous weight and richness. Today Astralis is recognized alongside the world’s most iconic wines and rated amongst the top 100 wines of the century.

The Dead Arm Shiraz, named after a fungal disease, derives from ‘truncated, gap-toothed old vines’ dating back to 1912. Affected vines are often severely pruned or replanted. One half, or an 'arm' of the vine slowly becomes reduced to dead wood. That side may be lifeless and brittle, but the grapes on the other side, while low yielding, display amazing intensity.

This iconic wine always displays the power and intensity of McLaren Vale Shiraz, yet has an elegance and refinement that few other wines from the region possess. It’s vibrant and lifted on the nose with bustling red fruits and savoury spice. The palate is long, linear and pure with tightly wound tannin and mouth-watering acidity. Beneath the layers of blueberry, pomegranate and Satsuma Plum is an intriguing core of earth and crushed rocks.

Elderton Command Shiraz is a classic, old-vine Barossa Shiraz. The wine derives from a single, low-yielding, ‘centenarian’ block planted around 1894. The Elderton Command Shiraz has established an enviable reputation since the first vintage in 1984. It is truly one of Australia’s best and most highly regarded icon wines. Accolades have come from the world over for vintages such as the 1992, which was chosen by the influential wine critic Robert Parker in his Wine Advocate as one of the world’s Top 80 wines. The 1995 Command was awarded by Wine Spectator Top 100 wines; the 2000 was awarded 97 points by the same magazine and placed 27 in their Top 100. The 1996 Command won the trophy for the best Shiraz in the world at the London International Wine and Spirit Competition.

Mount Edelstone Shiraz is one of Australia’s greatest single-vineyard wines. The Mount Edelstone vineyard, situated in the Eden Valley, was planted in 1912 by Ronald Angas, a descendant of George Fife Angas, who founded South Australia. Unusual for its time, it was planted solely to Shiraz. The ancient 500 million-year-old soils on the vineyard are deep red-brown clay-loam to clay, resulting in low yields from over 100 year-old dry-grown, ungrafted centenarian vines. First bottled as a single-vineyard wine in 1952, it became recognised as one of the greatest Shiraz wines in Australia.

Kaesler’s icon cuvee is their Old Bastard Shiraz, produced from a single vineyard planted in 1893 on sandy clay loams over clay. Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz, with its distinctive label, is a highly-individual style with elegance of fruit, density and richness, savoury, muscular tannins and underlying oak. The wine is matured in 'Burgundian' oak for 12 to 19 months, depending on the character of the vintage. It is bottled ‘au naturel’, with no fining and filtration. The style is occasionally reminiscent of Wendouree Shiraz with its core of fruit, energy across the palate and muscular tannins. The oak tends to lie in the background, but not always. The Old Bastard tannin quality, however, is unmistakable.

Katnook Odyssey Cabernet Sauvignon is handcrafted from the vintages where only a superior quality is achieved. Crafted with the most meticulous attention to detail, these wines signify a seamless blend of intense fruit and extended oak maturation. First released from the 1990 vintage, Odyssey has been crafted from every vintage since excluding 1993, 1995, 2007 and 2011.

Chief Winemaker Wayne Stehbens describes the overall style as ‘a wine with ripe, rich fruit combined with complex oak and barrel-matured flavours’. This highly-prized Coonawarra wine is a benchmark style with beautifully intense, pure, blackcurrant aromas, mocha oak complexity, superb volume and dense, chocolaty tannins. The Odyssey verges on the ‘essence-of-Coonawarra’ style yet manages to achieve remarkable balance and minerality.

The RunRig has earned a remarkable reputation among collectors worldwide for its integrity, individuality, riot of aromas and voluptuous richness. It often draws comparison with the beautifully fragrant and tautly structured wines from Côte Rôtie in the Northern Rhône. Shiraz from old dry grown Barossa vineyards is blended with Viognier, complementing the strengths and complexities of these individual parcels of fruit, whilst giving the resulting wine a further dimension. Although wonderfully aromatic, RunRig also exhibits a power and latent richness making it more akin to the hugely concentrated wines sourced from the sun drenched hill of Hermitage – the historic home of Syrah and some of the world’s most powerful and longest living wines.

First made in 1982, the John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon was conceived as a flagship wine for the Wynns portfolio. The wine honours pasturalist and parliamentarian John Riddoch, who was the largest land-owner in South Australia’s south-east corner.

John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon is made in small quantities from the best available fruit grown on the estate’s extensive Cabernet plantings. It has become the definitive Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon, and is arguably richer and more concentrated than any other wine in the region.

Made only in years when grapes of extraordinarily high quality are available; less than one per cent of the top Cabernet grapes are used to make it.