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 

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

Shiraz from Aus. is often hot ,fat and huge, where a sniff or sip gives very short term interest and enjoyment. This is completely the opposite! Explosive nose of ripe, cool spicy black/red fruits with a shot of pepper and mustard. Exhilarating!. Beautifully constructed with precise and expressive fruit. Soft and integrated tannins give it a sexy mouthfill and a fabulous minute long finish. A total delight! Drink now but give it 2- 10 years and it will just keep giving.

The 2004 Dry Red Wine No. 2 (95% Shiraz and 5% Marsanne and Viognier), while also amazing, is more closed, tannic, and harder to fully penetrate than the Shiraz. With aeration, the bouquet reveals notions of exotic Asian spices intermixed with flowers, blackberries, and cassis. In the mouth, the wine struts its stuff with a full-bodied, layered, broad, flavorful, concentrated style and moderately high tannin in the finish. This fabulous bambino needs to be cellared for 2-4 years and drunk over the following two decades.
Robert Parker - Wine Advocate - Dec-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.

The 2004 Shiraz (tasted just prior to bottling) reveals layers of fruit along with pure creme de cassis characteristics interwoven with notions of blackberries and smoke. Possessing a layered texture, a huge, opulent, full-bodied mouthfeel, superb purity, and a fine finish, it has the potential to be even better than the 2003. 
Robert M. Parker, Jr. - Wine Advocate - eRobertParker.com - Oct 2005