Winery & Vintage Info
The fruit for Elderton Shiraz was traditionally sourced from the Elderton vineyard situated on the banks of the North Para River, Nuriootpa, Barossa Valley, South Australia. Today, this wine includes fruit from the three exceptional estate vineyards that the Ashmead family own. Elderton was transformed from a vineyard supplying quality fruit to other wineries to a winery in its own right in 1982, and have since won much recognition for all of the wines, especially the Shiraz. Barossa Shiraz is now highly collectable worldwide, and the Elderton is always a benchmark for the region.
Our 2018 Barossa Shiraz comes from many parcels across our three vineyard sites. These vineyards ripen differently owing to their different aspects, elevation and soil types. In 2018 we enjoyed a spring with decent rain and mild conditions through budburst and flowering. Vintage flowed with decent separation in picking times from our earlier ripening Greenock fruit, through to Nuriootpa and our later ripening vineyard in Craneford. Fortunately, in 2018 little rain interrupted vintage and allowed for good ripening right into April when we harvested the Eden Valley portion of this Shiraz.
"We owe the beauty of our 2018 Shiraz as much to our climate in the Barossa, and our stunning vineyards, as we do to our winemaking team. In truth, 2018 was a vintage for Shiraz that required caretaker hands from our winemaking team and little else. The vibrancy of fruit coming through in this wine speaks of its inherent freshness at harvest. Our Shiraz was fermented in a combination of open fermenters (some with heading boards) and closed fermenters which allowed us to use a little extended maceration to ensure we made the most of the tannin profile our fruit had to offer. Pressed wine was then matured in a combination of new and seasoned French and American oak, selected to complement each parcel of fruit destined for this Shiraz." - Jules Ashmead
