Vineyards
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New World Historic Wine
The vines of the Barossa Valley are some of the oldest of their kind on the planet, far older than the famous vines of Bordeaux. Imported from Europe in the 1800s, just as France and Europe suffered the decimation of phylloxera, Barossa vines are the lone survivors of their coveted European ancestors. The wines of Neldner Road are named for the families who planted these historic vines: Brennecke, Loechel, Kraehe, Steinert, Kleinig and Hermann. All six vineyards are small, dry, and organically grown so we never get a lot of grapes from these vineyards. Watch Dave Powell talk about the vineyards and what makes this vintage so special.
Kraehe Vineyard
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Kraehe
Vineyard
The Kraehe family arrived in the Barossa Valley in the middle of the 19th century. Though the family has all but left their original home on the slopes of Marananga, many of their vineyard plantings live on today. The oldest vines on the Kraehe property are now over 100 years old. The wine produced from these centurion vines now makes a single vineyard wine of its own, named after an iconic Barossa family. The Kraehe vineyard is at 235 metres altitude and planted to a gentle Eastern exposure on Marananga’s ironstone ridge. Its soils are red, ironstone-rich clays. The vineyard is East-West trellised and rod and spur pruned.
The wine is aged two years in Dominique Laurent ‘Magic Casks’. The Kraehe vineyard is lucky be one of the few producers outside of France that have an allocation of the barrels. These provide a very long and consistent oxidation throughout maturation and slow oak character integration into the wine. The Shiraz produced from this vineyard is the epitome of the world-renowned style that is Barossa Valley Shiraz. The wine is rich and generous in fruit: plum, dark cherry and blackberry. It provides a deep, dark svelte tannin backbone and mouth-coating palate. The wine stands alone in intensity, opulence, and concentration of flavour.
Steinert Vineyard
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Steinert Vineyard
The Steinert vineyard is situated in the high hills of the Eden’s Flaxman’s Valley and contains some of the most prized and ancient vines of the Barossa. These historic, dry-grown, rod and spur pruned vines have now passed 120 years of age. The Steinert family still own the vineyard to this day. The vineyard slopes provide an East to North-Easterly exposure and the soil consists of dark quartzitic loam. The Steinert vineyard, for many years, has provided the backbone for famous wines of the Barossa, though until now has never had the opportunity to produce a wine on its own to show its true character. The 480 metres altitude and North-Easterly exposure allow the vines to experience a very long and cool ripening period producing fruit with outstanding
accumulation of complex flavours and elegant, powerful tannins. Steinert fruit is hand-picked from the five-acre vineyard in three separate passes. It is then fermented using traditional open-top concrete vats and pump overs. Once fermented, the wine is racked, and the skins are basket pressed slowly to encourage gentle extraction of tannin. The wine is then transferred to new Dominique Laurent barriques for wild malolactic fermentation followed by 18-24 months oak maturation before bottling without fining or filtration.
Brennecke Vineyard
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Brennecke Vineyard
The Brennecke Vineyard is located on the North-Western corner in the Seppeltsfield district of the Barossa Valley. The vines were planted at the turn of the twentieth century, in 1901. Today, Marilyn Homes is the custodian of the vineyard, her maiden name being Brennecke. Dave has been working with this vineyard, and with Marilyn, since 1992. The Brennecke vines are dry grown and pruned by the bush vine method. The vines experience a steep South-Easterly slope and grow in heavy red clay, over limestone subsoils. These factors together allow the fruit to accumulate a high phenolic content at ripeness, which translate to tremendous palate structure and tannin backbone in the wine.
Dave believes that very few Grenache vineyards have the potential to produce a single varietal Grenache wine. In fact, only some Grenache vineyards can deliver structure and age-ability. After decades of working with many of the great Grenache vineyards of the Barossa, Dave believes the Brennecke vineyard to be unique and unrivalled in the style of Grenache wine that it produces.Having such deep structure, the resulting wine from this site has the unique ability, for a Grenache, to be matured for 24 months in new Troncais French oak barriques.
Kleinig Vineyard
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Kleinig Vineyard
The Kleinig vineyard boasts a clone of Mataro, known locally as the great original Mataro clone. This historic vine was brought over from Europe two centuries ago, before the spread of Phylloxera decimated Europe’s aged vines. Many of the renowned Mataro vineyards throughout the Barossa have been planted from cuttings of this original clone, as was the old vine Mataro vineyard in Ebenezer. Ebenezer is an ideal sub-region for producing Mataro wines. The combination of its red clay and ironstone outcrops as well as highly alkaline calcareous subsoils allow for great intensity of flavours, while maintaining high natural
acidity and vibrancy and a strong backbone of mouth-puckering tannins that Mataro is known for. This wine draws inspiration from the great wines of Bandol in South-Western France, in which the greatest wines are produced solely from Mataro. The wines are wild, gamey and spicey. While having great intensity of flavours, the palate maintains its freshness with high natural acid and assertive tannins.
Hermann Vineyard
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Hermann Vineyard
The Hermann vineyard is located in the Kalimna subregion in the North Western Barossa. These 85-year-old plantings were slated to be grubbed out as the big company the Hermann brothers were selling to at the time, told them that the fruit wasnot of a high enough quality to justify a price which would encourage the boys to keep farming it. We got wind of this several years ago and approached the brothers to let us acquire some of the fruit to test this out. The Kalimna subregion consists of yellow to grey clays over limestone and typically produces fruit with lifted aromatics without being over the top like its Northern neighbour for Shiraz.
It came as no surprise to us that the fruit produced classic Kalimna wine, all dark chocolate and dark berry fruit with underlying powerful tannins. This district is the backbone of the NW Barossa and is present in many well-known Barossa wines. We now take all the fruit off this old parcel and age it for 24 months in French oak barriques prior to bottling with no fining or filtration as with all our wines.
Loechel Vineyard
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Loechel Vineyard
The Loechel Eden Valley Shiraz is sourced from a single vineyard at the Southern tip of the Eden Valley township. It was planted half a century ago by the Loechel family to granitic loam, at 440metres altitude. Today the vineyard is owned by Dave’s dearest friends in life, Eva and Paul Breen who has been his best mate for 56 years! The vineyard is planted on a steep Easterly aspect with high drainage and low yields, resulting in concentrated fruit and rich, complex wines.
Underneath the vineyard is a deep vein of granite which gives the resulting wines great structure and backbone with huge potential for aging. The vineyard is picked in two separate components which are kept separate throughout vinification. The top half of the vineyard’s fruit is retained to produce the Loechel Shiraz which is determined at blending prior to bottling.
