Winery: Henschke
Region: Mount Edelstone Vineyard, Eden Valley
Variety: Shiraz
Vintage: 2008
Your Wine Guy says:
We are always impressed with the quality of old vine fruit in Australia. Henschke’s Mt Edelstone Shiraz is sourced from a single block of 95 year old vines in the Eden Valley. The 2008 is deep crimson in the glass. The Mt Edelstone displays complex characters to tempt the nose with intense black berry, plums, some vanillin oak, and spicy touches of mint. As usual, the Edelstone palate is also rich and intense, with fleshy fruit, a complex and textured palate appears showing great depth and structure finishing with long velvety soft tannins. Extreme climatic conditions have resulted in a reduction of Henschke’s already limited single vineyard output, making the 2008 very scarce in quantity.
95 Points YWG Drink to 2023+
The winemaker says:
Colour: Deep red with violet hues.
Nose: Rich aromas of spicy plums, blackberries, anise and sage oil with hints of tar, pepper and cedar.
Palate: The intensely fruited palate is concentrated, rich and lush with excellent balance, velvety tannins and a long finish. Great vintage, 15+ years. – Henschke Wines
Winery/Vintage Information:
100% 95-year-old-vine Shiraz grown in the Eden Valley wine region.
The Mount Edelstone vineyard, situated in the Eden Valley, was planted in 1912 by Ronald Angas, a descendant of George Fife Angas, who founded South Australia. Unusual for its time, the vineyard was planted solely to shiraz in ancient 55 million-year-old soils which are deep red-brown clay-loam to clay, resulting in low yields from nearly 96-year-old dry-grown ungrafted vines. First bottled as a single-vineyard wine in 1952, it became recognised as one of Australia’s greatest shiraz wines.
The 2008 vintage in Eden Valley was preceded by an average rainfall and a mild and unusually frost-free spring with regular rainfall periods. Fine flowering weather meant good set despite the expectation that the previous drought year of 2007 would affect yields. The vines also showed surprisingly vigorous growth. A dry and hotter than average early summer caused smaller berry and bunch size. Although temperatures climbed to over 40C around New Year and in mid-February, the weather from mid-January through February was the coolest for 30 years, allowing amazing development of fruit colour, flavour and maturity. Matured in 90% new, 10% seasoned French (67%) and American (33%) hogsheads for 21 months prior to blending and bottling. – Henschke Wines