Winery: Teusner
Region: Barossa Valley
Variety: Shiraz
Vintage: 2009
Your Wine Guy says:
The nose is intensely perfumed with pronounced plum, dark berry fruits and violet notes. The palate is full bodied displaying outstanding fruit character with a soft texture and rich finish. Intense flavours of ripe dark plum along with spicy blackberry and liquorice flavours. A smooth tannin structure with long finish of dark plummy chocolate and spice. A beautiful wine for drinking now and will continue to drink well over, at least, the next 4 years. Outstanding value for money.
94 Points YWG Drink to 2015+
Critics say:
“Impressive colour; rich, ripe and pure, with a plummy Christmas cake bouquet; light on its feet despite its apparent ripeness; juicy, vibrant rich and long, showing the strength of Barossa shiraz without too much oak. Screwcap.”
94 Points Drink to 2020 James Halliday’s Wine Companion
“I like this. It’s by no means a profound wine but it’s juicy, flavoursome, impeccably balanced and then firm through the finish. Excellent value again.”
91 Points Drink 2010-2015 Campbell Mattinson The Wine Front Nov 2010
The winemaker says:
Nose: The Bouquet is sweetly scented with lifted aromas of Satsuma plum, blackberry and black cherry with some blueberry fruit lift. Hints of liquorice, Asian spice, kirsch, cola, sarsparilla and some enticing violet high tones.
Palate: The palate is densely packed and bursting with black and dark fruits, kirsch and plum with a touch of Asian spice, liquorice, jasmine and a healthy dose of Barossa earth. The concentrated, opulent fruit finishes long, dry and savoury with chalky ripe tannins. Kym Teusner
“We are absolutely stoked with the 2009 Riebke Shiraz... in fact Kym reckons that this is the best one that we've released to date! It has all the plush, velvety fruit characters of previous vintages, some gorgeous floral high tones, bright acidity and an opulent texture on the palate. As always, the name is a tip of the hat to the Riebke Brothers, whose vineyards play an integral role in the wines that we produce here at Teusner. The Riebke's old vineyards are located in the northern Barossa around the settlements of Ebenezer, Moppa and Kalimna. Leon, Steve and Nick consistently produce some of the best fruit in the Barossa... I guess when you've tended the vines for 5 generations you'd have a pretty good handle on your piece of dirt!” Teusner Wines
The Riebke Shiraz is dedicated to the Riebke Brothers who have vineyards located in the Northern Barossa sub districts of Ebenezer, Moppa and Kalimna. Their family has been tending these vines for 5 generations. Teusner wines were born in late 2001; the Riebke brothers owned an old vine Grenache vineyard and were selling the fruit to some of the industries big boys. The low yields and low prices being paid for the fruit meant that the brothers were running the vineyard at a loss and as a result it was facing certain destruction. In stepped Kym Teusner and his business partner who managed to scrap together enough cash to purchase about a quarter of the fruit from the vineyard which was enough to stave off the brothers plans of scrapping the vineyard. Since that day the Riebke brothers have become an integral supplier of fruit and winemaker, Kym Teusner gracefully acknowledges that the quality of this wine is due to the Riebke brothers - 'Those guys have some of the best kept vineyards in the Ebenezer district'.
Winery Information:
Kym Teusner is one of the Barossa’s young guns but with an old world influence. Many of his peers are making massively rich and ripe reds (often at very high prices), however Kym Teusner has aimed to balance the natural power of old vine Barossa material with careful, reductive winemaking to produce wines of incredible elegance and complexity. His wines are about as close as the Barossa gets to reminding the drinker of the Southern Rhône Valley in France.
The value for money they offer is quite astounding.
Kym was lucky enough to be guided by one of Australia’s (and perhaps the world’s) best old-vine specialist Dave Powell at Torbreck wines - renowned for their extremely high quality wines using the classic Rhône varieties like Shiraz, Viognier, Grenache, Mataro that regularly fetch very high prices sourcing fruit from very old vines within the Barossa.
Teusner formed as a partnership between Kym Teusner and brother- in-law Michael Page. Teusner Wines are focused on protecting very old, low-yielding, dry-grown Barossa vines. Kym Teusner was crowned Gourmet Traveller Young Winemaker of the Year in 2007 and produces wines which encapsulate the essence of the Barossa Valley, with remarkable complexity and elegance.
“Our philosophy is to produce only exceptional, affordable wines by being very selective about the fruit that we source from old, well maintained vineyards. These vineyards reliably produce balanced, complex fruit which we guide, with minimal inputs, into wine. Our fruit sources are predominantly family and close friends, which allows us this selectivity in which fruit we vinify.” Kym Teusner