The Butchers Block is a made with grapes selected from the Turkey Flat Bethany, Stonewell and Koonunga vineyards. The 2010 vintage of Butchers Block is a blend of 53% Shiraz, 31% grenache and 16% Mourvèdre.
In 2010 the growing season proved ideal with a warm summer preceded by the best winter rains for 5 years. Shiraz and Mourvedre soaked up the warmth showing both varietals suitability to the Barossa Valley by producing wine with great depth and structure. The grenache yield was reduced due to an unseasonal heat wave in November which affected flowering, producing a wine with increased colour and bright varietal expression.
The 2010 BBR is a firmly structured wine with Shiraz providing a significant backbone with rock solid tannins and fantastic depth of flavour. grenache provides a dash of Cherry sweetness, taming the Shiraz beautifully and increasing the appeal of the 2010 BBR as a young wine. Mourvedre plays the baseline adding extra layers to the tannins and a little funk and fragrance.
Turkey Flat is more than just a vineyard and home of the best Barossa wines, it is a family business that forms a vital part of the region’s rich cultural history and heritage.
It was here, on the banks of Tanunda Creek where bush turkeys once roamed, that pioneer Silesian settler Johann Friedrich August Fiedler planted the first Shiraz vines in 1847. His vines flourished and the land – Section One, in the Hundred of Moorooroo – was bought in 1865 by Gottlieb Ernst Schulz, a successful butcher who established a thriving retail business among the vines.
Butchering developed into dairying, but the vineyards were always kept, until Peter, a fourth generation Schulz, and his wife, Christie, made the transition from grape growing to winemaking. They transformed the historic bluestone butchers shop into the cellar door and heart of their Turkey Flat wine business, and made sure that the vines that Fiedler planted so long ago, now gnarled and twisted, are still a vital part of the process.
And with good reason, for it is the intense, concentrated fruit from these ancient vines that set Turkey Flat wines apart and have made them sought after the world over.
Don't Pay: $22.50
WBW Rating: 92/100
Closure: Stelvin
Region: Barossa Valley SA
Winemaker: Peter Schulz
Drink now until: 2017
Alc/Vol: 14.5 %
