Big Wave Dave

9.3

Much darker than the standard BC pinot.
- quite serious savoury and red fruit nose with a slight iodine note. Quite a bit more power than the base version with less overt high pitched red fruit, but still fresh and mouth-watering. Fantastic balance and so well integrated its hard to pull apart. The sweetness of the fruit is perfectly offset with some green/stemmy whole bunch action. Big step up from the base bottling. — 2 years ago

Tim Drury

9.3

Celebrating settlement. — 7 years ago

with Seema

Marshall Todd Herron DPM

9.7

On of the best Syrahs Ive ever had. Cork had some settlement on it but perfect thin line of absorption. Color is very opaque midnight purple in color. The legs last a good 7 seconds -slow and long. The boquet is the typical Trione experience. Pure goodness. Hints of plumb and blackberry. Its very well aged and preserved. The initial palate is of clove and blackberry. Also typical of the Trione vineyard. There are hints of blueberry as well. The finish is not spicy but buttery and smooth making you want to immediately have another taste. The edges of the mid tongue are stimulated and a quick finish of minimal dryness. Yummy YummyI recomend filtering and then decanting for 10 min. Its amazing!!!!! — 9 years ago

Erin Bluhm

9.8

Cedar creek winery. Settlement gold — 11 years ago

Fin Jams

9.0

Satin mouthfeel. Big pinot noir flavours yet so elegant...great kiwi drop — 2 years ago

Robert McNally

8.9

Taste bugger than the color you see on the pour. Fine structure. — 5 years ago

Andy Mc Nees

9.5

Besides fighting through tons of really fine settlement. 2 hour decent now and it's a great huge Syrah. I'm a white hawk apologist. White crushed rock. Lavish fruit. Dark chocolate cherries. Delicious x10 — 7 years ago

Shane Saunders

9.0

Great wine for a little celebration of a house settlement — 10 years ago

with Angelina

Thomas Johannessen

9.5

Second bottle with a cork issue, this bottle also had a lot of settlement. Besides the slight corking the wine was as good as we remembered. Solid body, fruity and nutty, with great mineral flavors. — 4 years ago

David T

Independent Sommelier/Wine Educator

9.3

On the nose, boysenberries, olallieberries, blueberries, blackberries, baking spices, dry powdery soils, dry stems, bramble and bright, fresh, fragrant purple florals. The palate is warm, lush, round and elegant. Tannins 65% resolved. It's still fairly big and very fresh. Palate fruits are; boysenberries, olallieberries, blueberries, blackberries, black raspberries and raspberries haunting the background. Lifting warm spices, black pepper, black licorice, vanilla, clove, nutmeg, dry crushed rocks, volcanic minerals with liqueur notes settling in at the mid point to the long finish. Dry stones, dry straw, tarry notes, violets, purple florals and palate raining acidity. The finish is long with good balance of fruit & earth. There's still nice tension, length and structure. The 05 still has another 7-10 years of good drinking ahead. As great as it was to be at the property tasting their new releases, it's a pleasure to enjoy one of their well aged wines back in the states. Photos of; the view from the new estate (love that red Barossa soil), tasting bar, Andrew Tierney, Torbreck International Sales Ambassador who hosted our visit(left) and Owner, David Powell (right). Producer history and notes...Torbreck Vintners was founded by David Powell in 1994. Before founding Torbreck, he worked for Robert O'Callaghan at Rockford Wines in the Barossa Valley. Rockford is an historic old winery and they love old historic wine relics...all you have to do is walk the property. In trying to start his own label, David lacked the funds to buy grapes outright. So, David began to share-farm a vineyard, a practice which involves working without pay until the grapes are sold, at which time the owner is paid a percentage of the market rate for his grapes and the share-farmer keeps the grapes for their own use. The share-farming principle or as we call it, sweat equity. This enabled Torbreck to obtain fruit from the very best vineyards in the Barossa Valley, while giving David Powell experience working in the vineyard and winery. In 1995 Powell crushed and fermented his grapes in a shed on his 12-hectare Marananga property; which continues to be home to the winery. The winery was named "Torbreck" after the forest in Scotland where Powell worked as a lumberjack. The first wine made under the Torbreck label was the 1995 RunRig. When it was released in 1997, Parker gave it a score of 95; which went a long way in launching Torbreck Vintners. Lisa, now Managing Editor at Robertparker.com raised that score to 98 in 2010. In late 2002, Torbreck was placed into receivership due to financial pressures on Powell from a divorce settlement. Torbreck was purchased by Australian businessman Jack Cowin for 6.5 million Australian dollars with Powell retained as winemaker and managing director. In 2008 Powell reacquired the estate in partnership with Peter Kight, the owner of Quivira Winery in Sonoma County's Dry Creek Valley in California. Torbreck produces around 70,000 cases of wine per year, depending on vintage conditions. 6.5 million Australian dollars is not a lot of money in today's environment...actually quite a deal. They had just completed their new facilities as shown in the photos two weeks prior to our visit in April. If you haven't had their wines, their lower price wines are very good at great values. Torbreck makes everything up to their high end RunRig at $300 plus a bottle with lots of quality wines in between that are really quite good and value priced vs. the rest of international market. — 7 years ago