Dave Powell is a Barossa legend, having cut his teeth at Rockford before founding Torbreck in 1994, the label that defined a whole era of Barossa Shiraz. He now owns Neldner Road; a return, by his own account, to the instincts that shaped his earliest and best work.
Named after the road on which his Marananga winery sits, Neldner Road draws fruit from two places Powell knows better than almost anyone: the warm Western Barossa and the cooler, high-altitude Flaxman’s Valley in the Eden Valley.
The 2023 Neldner Road Barossa Valley Shiraz is sourced from the Marananga, Seppeltsfield and Lyndoch districts of the Barossa Valley, from vines averaging 25 years of age grown on dark red-brown sands and red clay over clay subsoils. The fruit is hand-picked and fermented in open-top concrete vats before basket pressing. All components are matured in 4,500L French oak foudre for 18 months prior to blending and bottling without fining or filtration.
Generous in its dark plum and blackberry fruits, this offers notes of tar and graphite follow with hints of dried herbs and tobacco. The palate is rounded and supple with dark fruits and a supple tannin backbone which brings with it coffee ground and cedar flavours. The wine finishes with generous dark fruits and white pepper spice.
