A Bangin' Baker's Dozen v2.0

Just the fourth release of Yaldara Grand, and arguably the best so far, with its incredible concentration of fruit and use of exceptional oak. A big wine and a complex expression of the Barossa. Milk and dark chocolate, aniseed, blue fruits, tobacco leaf, plus plenty of cedary oak and tannin. Incredible.

Rich, black, dark, deep, black curranty, powerful and well oaked. Blackcurrant, black olives, dark chocolate, milk chocolate, velvety goodness here. A superb follow-up to the excellent 2017 vintage.

A low yielding vintage has resulted in this concentrated and black fruited Shiraz which still carries the house style savoury aspects mixed with red fruits. Concentration and length are excellent. Miniscule production, maximum quality.

A rich, expansive morass of relaxed blackness, herbed with mint and splintered with cedar. Dive into a T-Bone, pull the ring on one of these, settle back and enjoy.

2018 was a pretty fine vintage, and the Mitchell Kalmar Vineyard, quite close to cellar door is an exceptional vineyard. Soooo, in 2018 the Mitchells made the call to pick, vinify and bottle this vineyard with the intention of releasing a standalone wine. It is a ripper, blacker, denser and with exceptional potential for ageing. The Kalmar is laden with black fruits, graphite, spice and more. The texture here is thick, without being overwhelming, and the palate extremely long. Drinkable now, yeppers, but will cellar like a champ too.

Leasingham wines have been around since the 1890s and have been steered by a series of legendary winemakers over the years. It wasn’t until the early 70s that the Bin series kicked off, with a Bin 61 Shiraz and a Bin 56 Cab Malbec. These were both highly prized for their exceptional quality and regular ability to out-perform wines selling at 2-3 times their asking price. A few of us from WD were lucky enough to attend a vertical tasting with Tim Knappstein (one of the aforementioned and legendary Leasingham alumni) a decade or so ago and came away incredibly impressed with the quality and consistency of the wines. We looked at over 20 vintages, and everything we tasted was still showing fruit, the best of them were exceptional. So it’s a little sad that the '21 may be the last vintage of the Bin 61 Shiraz.

Lots of good stuff here, black tea, chocolate, coffee grounds, mint, plum, charcuterie, and blackberries. The overall impression is of mid-weight fruit, an even balance between softness, fine tannin and good length. Cracking value for money. Drink now through 2030.