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Torbreck 'Run Rig' Barossa Valley Shiraz 2005 Torbreck’s top shiraz – the Run Rig Shiraz, priced at well over $200 per bottle – is probably Australia ’s most hedonistic wine. It leaps out of the bottle like a rattlesnake, all fanfare and bite. It is, always, dangerously drinkable. It is thick with flavour and accented by sweetness, its spicy, gravelly, smoky complexity ramping its class through the roof. There’s always been a question mark though: this tastes so bloody good the day it is released – what happens if you stick it in the cellar? Is it Australia ’s best early-drinking wine, or will it develop and evolve if given time? A tasting in the Barossa Valley recently of every vintage yet made of Torbreck Run Rig Shiraz (including the just-released 2005) threw a crust of clear answers. Torbreck Run Rig Shiraz 2005: Stunning wine. A blaze of crushed fennel, smoke, blackberry and oystery notes, the riot of it then chanting out through the palate. There’s masses of brandied, smoky, jammy flavour here, its warm alcohol noticeable but well accommodated. An incredible wine. Drink: 2008-2020. 95 points. Cambell Mattinson, The Winefront Torbreck’s flagship wine, RunRig is a structured, muscular wine with phenomenal density, dry vintage port-like concentration, and magnificent notes of smoke, blackberries, cassis, leather and coffee. A hint of viognier’s sweet marmalade character comes through as the wine sits in the glass. A true ’Vin de Garde’ to reward those with the patience to cellar it. If there is a Barossa-based winery that has done more than any other to inspire Australian winemakers to push the edge of the technical envelope to create deeply fruited, spicy and savoury red wines that reflect both a regional heritage and the will to explore the complexity associated with the reds of the Rhône Valley, that winery is this winery. Torbreck, whose first vintage was only in 1996, has since engendered a healthy raft of competitors. Australian wine is the winner, since the virtually unheard-of unwooded blend of grenache, shiraz and mataro (aka the Juveniles) and its oaked variant (The Steading) are now a popular part of our wine culture, which has historically been far too narrow. Jeremy Oliver