Shiraz Barossa Valley 2021 – Peter Lehmann Hill & Valley

The Shiraz Barossa Valley Peter Lehmann Hill & Valley was fermented on skins for 7-10 days to maximise colour and flavour, before it was immediately racked into barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was then aged for 12 months in French oak hogsheads, of which 25% were new.

Peter Lehmann Wines works with over 140 growers across the length and breadth of the Barossa Valley region, with access to over 750 individual vineyard sites. The fruit for this wine comes from two premium vineyards in the cooler Light Pass and Gomersal districts of Northern Barossa.

Peter Lehmann started his own winery in 1979, partly as a means of helping with the glut of grapes then afflicting the Barossa. “I’ll take your grapes and turn them into wine,” he told the desperate growers, many of them conservative farmers of Silesian descent who regarded their old vines as part of their patrimony. “But I’ll only be able to pay you when I sell the wine.” They gratefully accepted. Without this deal, it is widely thought that the Barossa would have lost a large swathe of its old vines. The crisis passed, in large part thanks to Peter’s energy and vision, and the Lehmann winery became one of the Barossa’s – and Australia’s – outstanding wineries.

The “Hill & Valley” wines are made from fruit selected, often from single vineyards, in the Barossa Valley and from the higher reaches of the adjacent Eden Valley. The barrel-fermented Chardonnay, made from a vineyard in Wilton planted with new Dijon clones, is a bright and restrained example of the new style of Australian Chardonnay. The Riesling, also from the Eden Valley, is pristine and limey, while the Shiraz, made with fruit sourced from six different sub-districts of the Barossa, is lifted, vibrant and modern.