2016 Leconfield Shiraz McLaren Vale 750 ml

Some of you may be familiar with winemaker Richard Hamilton’s “Centurion,” the ancient dry-grown Shiraz plucked off vines planted in 1892, one of the oldest Shiraz vineyards in McLaren Vale, and one of the oldest vineyards in the world. That was a very special, rare $60 bottle we offered in June. But Richard has a knack for leveraging the fruits of bygone generations, the remnants of which he harvests to produce wines with the kind of deep concentration, focus, and opulence, that simply stops you in your tracks. Imagine all that, with a heady mix of black fruits, dark chocolate, and toasted vanilla bean, in an under-$25 bottle? You don’t have to imagine it: The 2016 Leconfield Shiraz from McLaren Vale, produced by Richard, exists, and for those among you who fully grasp the sheer joy of a well-crafted Shiraz, skip to the checkout. For the rest, read on about the Septuagenarian who had to find out for himself. 

After 30 years in the wine business, Sydney Hamilton founded Leconfield in McLaren Vale at the ripe age of 76. His story is a reminder to us all that we’re never too old to dream. He was interviewed about it exactly 45 years ago on the “Now in Retirement” ABC Radio Series in 1973. A few minutes into the interview, the announcer asked, “I understand that you belong to the winemakers who think that it’s something of an art and that there are other reasons for becoming a very good winemaker? What were the sort of things that spurred you on?”

Hamilton’s response was quick and witty: “Well perhaps to answer that question, I was always—from the time I started in winemaking—I was an idealist. I could tell any young aspiring winemakers what’s necessary. It’s easy to make wine; there’s nothing easier. All you need to do is empty the bathtub and put the grapes in it and get your girlfriend or your wife to wash her feet and jump in and tread them all out...and in eight or nine days it’s wine—you might have trouble in selling it.”

“But this surely wasn’t the way you made wine?” asked the announcer, nervously laughing. Hamilton wryly responded: “No, we didn’t actually.” And no, they certainly did not. What did Hamilton like to drink? “Chateau La Feit is $60 a bottle,” he remarked. Although the transcription misspells the famous First Growth, our eye gravitated more to the pricetag than the spelling error. What a world back then.

In 2016, McLaren Vale experienced an excellent vintage, which was both drier and warmer than average. When the call to harvest was made at Leconfield, Shiraz berries were tremendously concentrated, owing to the scarcity of water throughout the season. The warm temperatures throughout ensured that berries were gorgeously ripe, yielding a deep and seductive Shiraz. While the great Sydney Hamilton is no longer with us today, his nephew, Richard Hamilton, has carried on his vision and commitment to producing fine wine from Australia’s greatest region. The 2016 Shiraz, aged 16 months in French oak, of which just 21 percent was new, would have certainly made him proud. With it, Sydney’s legacy and dream lives on.