Brought in by retailer Bottles & Bottles, the limited-edition Six Origins by Artisans of Barossa is a six-bottle Shiraz set that explores the provenance of that South Australian winemaking region.
Powerful and rich with flavours of blackberry, pepper and spice – it’s far too easy to pigeonhole Shiraz wines from Australia. This is even more so those made in the Barossa Valley. But Artisans of Barossa – a collective of wineries from the region who got together to promote the art of small batch, sub-regional Barossa winemaking – aims to showcase the different expressions that Shiraz has to offer depending on the varying terroir across the Barossa Valley. To that effect they’ve come up with Six Origins by Artisans of Barossa, taking a leaf from their previous highly successful initiative, the Grenache Project.
Six Origins by Artisans of Barossa is a limited edition collection of six Shiraz wines, each of which is produced by a different Barossa Valley or Eden Valley based producer. The six winemakers – Sons of Eden, Spinifex Wines, Schwarz Wine Co, Hobbs of Barossa Ranges, Jack West Wines and John Duval Wines – obtained fruit from different parts of the Barossa Valley, and then vinified them according to their own signature style or winemaking approach. The result, as you can imagine, are six vastly different wines.
For example, the 2018 Ebenezer Barossa Shiraz by John Duvall Wines sourced grapes from the district of Ebenezer in the north of Barossa where it’s warmer and the soils red with iron. The wine here is generous with fruit yet with a lovely tinge of acidity; if you find the flavour familiar, it might be because Penfolds sources Shiraz from this area a lot for many of its expressions. The 2018 Gomersal Barossa Shiraz by Jack West Wines, on the other hand, takes fruit from Gomersal, one of the most westerly districts in Barossa. Here the wine exhibits a prominent dusty cocoa note with a touch of licorice, and the use of some American oak offering a more rounded vanilla undertone.
Similarly the 2018 Light Pass Barossa Shiraz by Schwarz Wine Co obtains grapes from Light Pass near Ebenezer, but the soils there are even redder and terra rossa-like, much like over at Coonawarra. The wine is plush with red fruit, and creamily complex thanks to the judicial use of seasoned French oak.
Showcasing Angaston – an area which straddles both Barossa and Eden ranges – is the 2019 Angaston Barossa Shiraz by Sons of Eden. The wine too offers the intriguing intersection of classic characteristics of Shiraz from both areas, with a mix of red berry fruit and potpourri on nose and palate.
Spinifex Wines’ take is the 2018 High Eden Barossa Shiraz made with fruit from that part of Eden Valley, its generally higher altitude resulting in an elegant wine that may take some coaxing but will ultimately reward you with its spicy pepper undertones and tannin firmness. The 2018 Keyneton Barossa Shiraz by Hobbs of Barossa Ranges – made with fruit also from the Eden Valley side of Barossa – is possibly the most structured of them all, with a strong mineral backbone underpinning floral and herbal notes.
Six Origins by Artisans of Barossa is sold as a full set of six wines and is available in Singapore exclusively at the price of S$588 at 8 by Bottles & Bottles in Changi Airport Terminal 3.
