2004 Australia

The flagship 2004 Run Rig is 96.5% Shiraz and 3.5% Viognier with the Shiraz component aged for 30 months in a mixture of new and used French oak. Yields were a minuscule 14 hl/ha (about 1 ton per acre). Saturated opaque purple/black, it has a remarkably kinky, exotic perfume of fresh asphalt, pencil lead, smoke, pepper, game, blueberry and black raspberry. Full-bodied and voluptuous in the mouth, the wine is dense and packed, with amazing purity, sweet tannins, and a complex collection of sensory stimuli. The wine demands 10 years of cellaring.

Torbreck, under the leadership of owner/winemaker David Powell, remains a Barossa Valley benchmark as well as one of the world’s greatest wine estates. The top cuvees are limited production and expensive but there are also some outstanding values in the portfolio. With regard to the current vintages for the Barossa red wines, David Powell states “? 2004 is more savory while 2005 has more purity and definition. 2004 is more classic, 2005 will take longer to come around.
Jay Miller - Wine Advocate #173 Oct 2007 

One of Australia’s most prodigious Syrahs, Clarendon Hills’ 2004 Syrah Astralis is fashioned from vines planted in 1920, and spends time in 100% new French oak from the cooper, Cadus. It boasts off the charts intensity as well as an opaque purple color, and notes of spring flowers, blueberries, blackberries, roasted coffee beans, pepper, smoke, and a hint of sweet toasty oak. This full-bodied, rich, intense, backward Syrah needs 2-3+ hours in the decanter if one is going to approach it at this point in its life.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate #167 - Apr 2006

Deep in colour, this youthful elemental wine shows a miraculous overlapping of aromas and flavours. The regional characters of both Coonawarra and the Barossa Valley are finely poised. The highly perfumed chamomile/violet/mocha aromas,immense concentration, savoury flavours and classically structured palate are in superb balance. This beautifully defined cross-regional/varietal with its meaty nuances and fine-grained tannins will continue to evolve in the cellar for decades.

Every time you taste the Penfolds flight of wines you are so impressed on the run up to tasting this icon that when you eventually get to it, you find it amazing that it blows all of its siblings out of the water. 2004 Grange is quite simply breathtaking. Multilayered, exotic yet classic, totally dignified, concentrated but not in the least way blousey. Beautifully refined tannins complement a majestic pure concentration of precise ripe black fruits; it has to be tasted to be believed and I think it will be heralded as one of the finest Grange vintages ever made.
Simon Staples, BBR Sales & Marketing Director

The 2004 Keyneton Estate “Euphonium” Shiraz is purple-colored with fragrant aromas of toast, black cherry, scorched earth, pencil lead, and blueberry. Tightly knit but well balanced, it will need 5-7 years in the cellar to unwind and reveal its full potential. At that point, my score will look conservative.
Jay S Miller - Wine Advocate - Issue#173 Oct 2007