Rockford Black Shiraz 2013

Robert O'Callaghan founded Rockford in 1984 on a deliberately unfashionable premise — reviving traditional Barossa winemaking methods at a time everyone else was modernising — and Black Shiraz is perhaps the purest expression of that philosophy, directly inspired by the great Sparkling Burgundies Colin Preece once made at Great Western. The wine is built on a genuine solera: its foundation traces back to 500 cases of old Barossa Shiraz offered to O'Callaghan in the early 1980s, with the finest Shiraz from every subsequent vintage folded in ever since, first disgorged as Black Shiraz in 1988 and still running today. Each release blends that ancient solera base with a "vintage selection" — essentially Rockford's own Basket Press Shiraz, matured three years in oak — half of which returns to the solera to keep the cycle alive, and half of which is seeded with yeast and sugar for a secondary fermentation in bottle. After extended time on lees, it's disgorged and finished with a splash of Rockford's own fortified Shiraz. Only around 2,500 cases are released each year, sold exclusively at the Krondorf Road cellar door every December — loyal mailing-list members, known as the "Stonewallers," get first access in October — and it sells out completely before Christmas.

The result is genuinely unlike anything else in Australian wine: powerful aromas of blackberry, dark cherry, and plum meet liquorice, cocoa, and warm baking spice, carried on a palate that's luscious and concentrated yet lifted by fine, persistent bubbles and real savoury complexity.