2021 Shobbrook Poco Rosso

VARIETAL: Syrah
REGION: Barossa Valley, SA
VITICULTURE: Organic/Biodynamic
WINEMAKER: Tom Shobrook

"100% Shiraz, Poco Rosso was supposed to be a medium to light red wine from mostly old Vine Vale Syrah. While it might have been so for the unreleased version of 2019 it was not to follow both in 2020 and again this year in 2021. The vineyard is too good and the fruit too old to take all that away. Harvest is not early nor late with Poco Rosso. Its somewhere in between before the fruit starts to loose its plumpness. Whole clusters of Syrah are immersed in fermenting poolside juice. Here Tom gets the best of both worlds, youth and wisdom. A wine to go back to for the sheer savouriness."

Alongside the likes of James Erskine (Jauma) and Anton van Klopper (Lucy M), Tom Shobbrook is one of the most important figures in Australian natural wine. "After 12 years of growing grapes and making wines on our farm in Seppeltsfield things have come to an end. We now have 2 hectares of vines in Flaxman Valley which will give us some fruit in the harvest of 2019. It won't be much but it will be very exciting to taste fruit from the vines we grew from cuttings in our nursery at home. We will eventually end up with around 5 hectares of vines and a mixed orchard of fruit and nut trees. The Farm sits at 540 meters above the ocean. The soils are old and acidic consisting of sandy loam over yellow orange clay. The sandy loam profile is scattered with rose quartz while the clay layers have shadows of mica."