The Steinert vineyard is situated in the high hills of the Eden’s Flaxman’s Valley and contains some of the most prized and ancient vines of the Barossa. These historic, dry-grown, rod and spur pruned vines have now passed 120 years of age. The Steinert family still own the vineyard to this day.
The vineyard slopes provide an East to North-Easterly exposure and the soil consists of dark quartzitic loam. The Steinert vineyard for many years has provided the backbone for famous wines of the Barossa, though until now has never had the opportunity to produce a wine on its own to show its true character.
The 480 metres altitude and North-Easterly exposure allow the vines to experience a very long and cool ripening period, producing fruit with outstanding accumulation of complex flavours and elegant, powerful tannins. At maturity, we hand pick the fruit from the five acre vineyard in three seperate passes and ferment it using traditional open-top concrete vats and pump overs.
Once fermented the wine is racked and the skins are basket pressed slowly to encourage gentle extraction of tannin . The wine is then transferred to new Dominique Laurent barriques for wild malolactic fermentation followed by 18 months oak maturation before bottling without fining or filtration.
“The Steinert’s perfume is beautifully complex, displaying dried herbs and spices, lifted florals, dark cherries, red currants, charcuterie meats and smoked wood. Its palate is supple but refined, with a firm backbone of fine-grained tannins providing the framework for a kaleidoscope of flavours. It sings with dark fruits accompanied by thyme, lavender, cedar and cloves, finishing with a crescendo of soft, powdery tannins. The Steinert Shiraz is the epitome of the beauty and grace of the Eden Valley.”
DAVE POWELL
The 2015 Powell & Son Steinert Shiraz is a highly regarded, ultra-premium, flagship red wine crafted by the renowned father-son winemaking duo Dave and Callum Powell. It is an exceptional, micro-production expression of single-vineyard Eden Valley Shiraz sourced from a tiny, two-hectare block of historic, 120-year-old vines in the Flaxman Valley area, benefiting from a low-yielding, highly concentrated 2015 vintage.
- Aromas: Intense aromatics of ripe black cherries, aniseed licorice, blackberries, and dark plums, followed by fleeting wafts of roses, spice box, toasty vanillin cedar, and scorched earth.
- Palate: Medium to full-bodied and seriously intense, featuring a kaleidoscope of dark fruit flavors, leather, white pepper, and smoke wrapped in a sturdy, fine-grained tannin and vibrant acid framework.
- Style: Rich, powerful, and opulently textured, balancing massive old-vine depth and fleshy fruit density with the perfume, remarkable freshness, and structural elegance typical of a cooler Eden Valley site.
- Winemaking: Sourced exclusively from the 120+ year old Steinert vineyard, hand-picked, and matured for 18 months in new Dominique Laurent French oak "Magic Casks" boasting ultra-thick, double-dimension staves.
- Cellaring: Showing magnificent savory evolution, complexity, and integration right now, but possesses the outstanding structural balance to continue evolving and cellaring gracefully through 2035.
- Food Pairing: Pairs magnificently with a slow-roasted wagyu beef rib-eye, wood-fired venison loin, wild boar ragù, or mature hard cheeses.
The Powell & Son Steinert 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 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.
