Eldorado Road Comrade Nero d'Avola 2022
Style: Red Wine
Closure: Screwcap
Eldorado Road Comrade Nero d'Avola 2022
Camberwell
Burke Road
Camberwell VIC 3124
Australia
Producer: Eldorado Road
Country: Australia
Region: Eldorado
Vintage: 2022
Critic Score: 95
Alcohol: 12.8%
Size: 750 ml
Drink by: 2028
"Shout it from the rooftops – Eldorado Road, as a label, should be much more famous. The wines are too interesting, too keen, too complex to be 'just another Victorian producer'." Andrew Graham
"Eldorado Road arguably produces Australia's best Nero d’Avola." Huon Hooke
Eldorado Road is run by Paul Dahlenburg (Bear), the winemaker at Baileys of Glenrowan, and his wife Lauretta. They are fiercely loyal to North East Victoria and produce a superb portfolio of wines from vineyards in Eldorado, Beechworth, Glenrowan and Rutherglen. The rich and velvety 2022 Comrade Nero d'Avola once again shows that Dahlenburg has a magic touch with Nero d’Avola. Fruit is sourced from their home block on Eldorado Road.
"Few Australian winemakers understand nero d'Avola as well as Paul Dahlenburg. He has worked hard to deliver a complex, self-assured, masterful interpretation that is a long way from the fruity, easy-drinking examples we see. A swish of air and watch this wine open: bramble, dark cherry, blueberry, wild herbs, licorice, dark chocolate, woodsy spice – deep, dark, elegantly savoury. A textural, fine, cherry-pip-tannined, well-proportioned wine with an Italianesque flourish of astringency to close." Jeni Port
"Our farm block of Nero d’Avola in Eldorado delivered a balanced healthy crop in 2022. Much like 2021, complex flavours developed at a lower Baumé as well as vibrant colours in noticeably darker shades than we normally see. We split the fruit into 6 micro ferments, which included 15% whole bunch, 100% whole bunch carbonic maceration in custom puncheon fermenters, destemmed and crushed, and whole berry in Italian Nico Velo concrete tulip.
Our Comrade Nero d’Avola is really where we turn the dial up in terms of work in the winery. We deploy a diverse range of winemaking techniques across a large number of small ferments so that when it comes time for the final blend, we have a number of complex elements to layer together. All ferments were lightly hand plunged daily and they all spent between 12 and 27 days on skins before being gently basket pressed directly into oak. Maturation occurred over 12 months on full lees in seasoned French oak puncheons and barriques." Eldorado Road
Expert reviews
"Few Australian winemakers understand nero d'Avola as well as Paul Dahlenburg. He has worked hard to deliver a complex, self-assured, masterful interpretation that is a long way from the fruity, easy-drinking examples we see. A swish of air and watch this wine open: bramble, dark cherry, blueberry, wild herbs, licorice, dark chocolate, woodsy spice – deep, dark, elegantly savoury. Six micro-ferments join in producing this textural, fine, cherry-pip-tannined, well-proportioned wine with an Italianesque flourish of astringency to close. Drink by 2028." Jeni Port, Halliday Wine Companion - 95 points and Special Value Wine ★
Awards
Special Value Wine – Halliday Wine Companion ★
About the winery
Eldorado Road is run by Paul Dahlenburg (Bear), the winemaker at Baileys of Glenrowan, and his wife Lauretta (Laurie). Having spent a career making wine and tending to the vineyards of others, they decided to release wines under their own label in 2010 and Eldorado Road was born. They are fiercely loyal to North East Victoria and produce a superb portfolio of wines from vineyards in Eldorado, Beechworth, Glenrowan and Rutherglen.
The couple established Eldorado in the Beechworth foothills equidistant between Beechworth and Wangaratta; on Eldorado Road just outside the quaint hamlet of Eldorado. Here they planted small parcels of Nero d'Avola and Durif. The property was selected and purchased principally because it is located on a seam of free draining red decomposed granite loaded with granite buckshot, flanked by granite hills and fed by the gentle flowing Reedy Creek which weaves its way through the property on its journey to the Ovens River.
Climate mapping matched to geography and terroir suggested that Nero d'Avola would thrive on the property and discussions with Allesio Planeta, a revered producer hailing from Sicily (the indigenous home of Nero d’Avola), convinced them to plant the variety. Over a decade later, Huon Hooke believes that Eldorado Road arguably produces Australia’s best Nero d’Avola.
Durif was planted in 2008 from cuttings taken from an original Rutherglen clone kindly provided by Stanton & Killeen. Paul and Laurie believed the cooler location on Eldorado Road would produce a Durif expressing power, intense perfume and a level of finesse not often associated with the variety. They mix grapes from their cool-climate home vineyard with grapes from a proven mature vineyard in Rutherglen to add some generosity, as it always comes in at a riper Baumé than the Eldorado fruit. To quote Jeni Port, "Eldorado Roads Durif needs to be tasted by every drinker who was ever scared witless by the grape. This is not scary, rather it's brilliantly delivered as a serious wine of some beauty: aromatic, blueberry, plum, dark chocolate and spice all lifted, fresh and plush. Bravo."
Dahlenburg knows all about the magic of old vines. Since 1996 he has been making powerfully structured and rich red wines at Baileys from mature plantings of Shiraz and Durif – some dating back a century or more. In 2009 Dahlenburg approached the owners of a derelict 2ha block of Shiraz planted in the 1890s near Glenrowan to see if he could lease it from them. They tried to talk him out of it, saying it was too run-down and that he’d be better off buying fruit from other vineyards in the area. But Dahlenburg was determined - this vineyard was over 100 years old and it was special – and he set about the backbreaking job of restoring a section of the vineyard. For all his hard work, Dahlenburg retrieved only one tonne of grapes from the 2010 vintage.
These remarkable old vines were originally shipped from France to Glenrowan back in the late 1800s. Established before federation, with only rainfall to sustain them, they endured prevailing weather to forge an existence. It’s truly remarkable these vines still survive today, but thanks to Dahlenburg, this old block continues to tell its own story and reward the drinking public with wines born from another era. Only a minute amount of the Perseverance Old Vine Shiraz is produced each year - the average yield is 800kg/acre. To give perspective, Grand Cru Burgundy yields are 15x that!
The best quality Beechworth Chardonnay is sourced from one of the coolest vineyards in the GI located at 550m above sea level. The purity of this fruit allows Eldorado Road to create a powerful, complex wine with many similarities to those of Chablis.
"Here at Eldorado Road we make good wine at a profit if we can, at a loss if we must, but always good wine."
Victoria
Victoria is home to more than 800 wineries across 21 wine regions. The regions are Alpine Valley, Beechworth, Bendigo, Geelong, Gippsland, Glenrowan, Goulburn Valley, Grampians, Heathcote, Henty, King Valley, Macedon Ranges, Mornington Peninsula, Murray Darling, Pyrenees, Rutherglen, Strathbogie Ranges, Sunbury, Swan Hill, Upper Goulburn and Yarra Valley.
Victoria's first vines were planted at Yering in the Yarra Valley in 1838. By 1868 over 3,000 acres had been planted in Victoria, establishing Victoria as the premier wine State of the day. Today, the original vineyards planted at Best's Wines are among the oldest and rarest pre-phylloxera plantings in the world.
Victoria's climate varies from hot and dry in the north to cool in the south and each wine region specialises in different varietals. For example, Rutherglen in the north is famous for its opulent Muscats and Topaque and bold reds, while the many cooler climate regions near Melbourne produce world class Chardonnay and pinot Noir. Victoria is truly a wine lover's playground.