2001 Chris Ringland Dry Grown Barossa Ranges Shiraz 750ml Wooden Box

100 Points - Robert Parker The Wine Advocate The Chris Ringland Dry Grown Barossa Ranges Shiraz, originally Three Rivers, is a modern classic representing the best of Barossa terroir, early 20th-century vine stock, Australian inventiveness and modern winemaking practices. The north-east facing vineyard, located on the corner of Flaxmans Valley Road and Stone Chimney Creek Road, was established by Thomas Randall in 1910. It was acquired in 1994 by winemaker Chris Ringland who gradually restored the vineyard. The soils are shallow and skeletal, with granitic sandy loams over underlying clay and moisture-holding podzols. The dry-grown low-yielding vines, on their own roots, are pruned hard and expected to adapt to the growing season. As a consequence the postage stamp-sized vineyard, at only 1.5 hectares, is renowned for its unusually thick‑skinned shiraz. Deep in colour, exquisitely concentrated and laden with tannins, the fruit character exemplifies the enduring quality of pre-phylloxera vine stock. It is known for its rich texture and weight. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the wine received 100-point ratings from the then highly influential US wine critic Robert Parker on five occasions. Since 1995 the wine has come from the unirrigated Stone Chimney Creek Vineyard, a 2 hectare (5 acre) block of very old vines in the Barossa Ranges. It is typically fermented in new French oak open top vats and aged in new French oak hogsheads (300 liters) for 48 months. It is then matured in bottle for several more years before release. The Dry Grown Barossa Ranges Shiraz has been known to reach as much as 17 percent alcohol. A second wine from the property, Randall's Hill, is made from parcels deemed less ageworthy, and is only released in certain years. Just a handful of barrels of each wine are made.