The Kraehe family were amongst the original settlers to come to the Barossa Valley in the middle of the 19th century. Though the family has all but left their original home on the slopes of Marananga, many of their vineyard plantings live on today. The oldest vines on our Kraehe property are now over 100 years old. I first began working with the vineyard in 1994 and has been making wine from these vines since. The wine produced from these centurion vines have always produced the backbone of my most premium wines and it now makes a single vineyard wine of its own named after the original settlers of the area.
The Kraehe vineyard is at 235 metres altitude and planted to a gentle Eastern exposure on Marananga’s ironstone ridge. Its soils are red, ironstone-rich clays. The vineyard is East-West trellised and rod and spur pruned.
The wine is aged two years in Dominique Laurent ‘Magic Casks’, of which I am lucky be one of the few producers outside of France that have an allocation of the barrels. The Magic Cask oak is hand selected by Dominique Laurent and then air dried for four years before cooperage. The staves are 45mm thick, double the thickness of many regular barrel staves, which provide very long and consistent oxidation throughout maturation and slow oak character integration into the wine.
The Shiraz produced from this vineyard is the epitome of the world renowned style that is Barossa Valley Shiraz. The wine is rich and generous in fruit: plum, dark cherry and blackberry. It provides a deep, dark svelte tannin backbone and mouth-coating palate. The wine stands alone in intensity, opulence and concentration of flavour. It is a style unique to the world of wine – the style that put Australian wine in the realm of global fine wine – and a style which we are truly proud to be its upholders of.
“The Kraehe Marananga Shiraz jumps out of the glass with blueberry and plum fruits, underscored by sensual oak characters and meaty complexity. It shows ground coffee and mocha, fertile earth and dried herbs.The wine stains the palate and develops layers from beginning to finish – it displays blackberry compote and kirsch, before developing into woodsmoke, cured meats and olive through to the finish. The tannin profile is assertive, yet fine grained and tight-knit. The full-bodied concentrated palate provides a very long-lasting finish.”
DAVE POWELL
The 2015 Powell & Son Kraehe Shiraz is a highly regarded, ultra-premium, flagship red wine crafted by legendary Barossa winemaker Dave Powell. It is an exceptional, micro-production expression of single-vineyard Barossa Valley Shiraz sourced from a tiny, one-hectare block of historic, 110-year-old vines along Marananga's ironstone ridge, benefiting from a low-yielding, immensely concentrated 2015 vintage.
- Aromas: Scented aromatics of blackberry and blueberry preserves, dried plums, and mulberries, followed by undertones of salami, fertile earth, asphalt, licorice, and ground coffee.
- Palate: Full-bodied and voluptuous, featuring concentrated layers of blackberry compote, kirsch liqueur, woodsmoke, and cured meats wrapped in firm, rounded tannins.
- Style: Rich, opulent, and intensely structured, perfectly balancing massive old-vine power and fruit density with mineral grace, poised acidity, and an epically long finish.
- Winemaking: Sourced exclusively from the centurion Kraehe vineyard, hand-harvested, and aged for two years in premium French oak "Magic Casks" featuring staves of double thickness.
- Cellaring: Showing magnificent savory harmony and depth right now, but possesses the outstanding structural framework to continue evolving gracefully through 2045.
- Food Pairing: Pairs magnificently with wood-fired prime rib, slow-braised wild boar shank, seared venison steaks, or rich mushroom and black truffle ragù.
The Powell & Son Kraehe Shiraz completely transcends standard regional profiles, delivering a sophisticated, highly structured expression of old-vine depth and dark-fruited power from a small-batch producer dedicated to capturing the absolute pinnacle of Barossa's ancient viticultural legacy.
Powell & Son
Powell & Son may be a relatively new label, but it is the creation of a man with one of the most formidable reputations in Australian wine. Dave Powell is the founder of Torbreck — the Barossa juggernaut that took the wine world by storm in the 1990s — and he brings that same depth of knowledge and conviction to everything he does.
That inspiration is reflected in the varieties Powell & Son work with: Shiraz, Grenache and Mataro for the reds, and Roussanne, Marsanne and Eden Valley Riesling for the whites — the classic Rhône palette transplanted into two of Australia's most celebrated wine regions, and interpreted with the kind of quiet mastery that only comes from a lifetime in the vines.
