2016 Elderton Estate Shiraz Barossa 750 ml

Elderton is one of the great benchmarks of Australian Shiraz that competes against marquee producers like Penfolds, Henschke, and Torbreck. Of all the wines we’ve tasted from the Land Down Under this year, the 2016 Elderton Estate Shiraz offers the best balance of fireworks and wallet-friendliness, with depth and density to spare and chocolatey notes of blackberries, black cherries, licorice, plums, and vanilla.

This standout Barossa Shiraz is a phenomenal wine that encapsulates everything that the Ashmead family has done so well since their first vintage back in 1982. It’s a rich, generous red that perfectly expresses the three distinct parcels that the family farms in the rocky, minerally land of Craneford; the 104-year-old vineyard in Greenrock; and the banks of the North Para River in Nooriotpa, where growers realized that the alluvial, clay-rich land was a perfect place for growing grapes over a century ago and first planted it in 1894. Because of this amazing tapestry of vineyards, and with vines that range from 22 to 123 years old, the 2016 is a bottle that has seriously impressive concentration and aging potential.

Wine & Spirits said as much in their review, calling the 2016 Elderton Estate Shiraz “a dense wine, thick in its up-front concentration...where detail in the tannins keeps yielding flavor, from floral notes to salty edges and tangy, tarry, cool freshness.” And James Suckling loved its “blackberry and dark-cherry aromas…[that feed] into a succulent, long palate.”

It’s a wine that perfectly embodies what the family has always valued. And now, 40 years after Neil and Lorraine Ashmead relocated to the Barossa, their sons Cameron and Allister sustainably farm the land, and continue to craft wines that showcase the potential of this pocket of South Australia.

The 2016 Estate Shiraz is fermented in open-top concrete before spending two full years in a combination of French and American oak puncheons, which soften the impressively structured tannins and lend the wine an ambrosial sense of warm, exotic spices. The result is a red that completely bowled us over with the sheer pleasure it offers in the short term, as well as its ability to continue evolving in the cellar for another six or seven years.

Not that we’d be able to wait that long: Given the fireworks on the palate already, there’s no sense in waiting. Our recommendation is to pick up half a case or more and follow it over the next several years. A wine with this kind of history, density, and delicious drama deserves to be enjoyed as frequently as possible.