Eldorado Road Quasimodo Nero d'Avola Durif Shiraz 2022

"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 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. Quasimodo is a unique Australian blend of Nero d’Avola, Shiraz and Durif sourced from these four regions. It’s an amalgam of flavour and colour culminating in a complex rewarding wine. As individuals, the varietal wines can struggle for love but when blended together they sing, shine and bring harmony in a way that is only possible together. A wine for all occasions and one that should be a staple of every cellar. 

"Three grape varieties are sourced from four North East wine regions, each bringing its own particular qualities to bear. Most definitely medium bodied, emphatically approachable and full of drinking pleasure in layers of dark fruits, lifted spices, chocolate, tilled earth, warm oak and well-managed tannins, all seamlessly blended. Fab quality for the price."  Jeni Port

"The 2022 Quasimodo is a blend of 35% Nero d’Avola, 33% Shiraz and 32% Durif. It sits in its usual medium-bodied spectrum, with plenty of bright fruit, a lifted floral bouquet and fine chalky tannins. The Nero d’Avola was sourced from two vineyards; our home site at Eldorado, which is planted on rare decomposed red granite soils, along with fruit from a certified organic vineyard in Glenrowan.

The Shiraz similarly came from two sites; the Mt Pilot Estate Vineyard in Eldorado and the Battely Vineyard in Beechworth which is leased and managed by us. Located in an isolated spot in the hills of Eldorado, Mt Pilot Estate Vineyard is painfully low yielding but delivers such incredible concentration and flavour that we can’t be kept away. We really can’t overstate the quality of the fruit grown by Lachie and Penny Campbell at Mt Pilot Estate. Much like our own vineyards in Eldorado, it falls just outside the Beechworth GI and so is often overlooked. We believe, however, that this fruit could produce a stand-alone Shiraz that would give Beechworth’s best a run for their money. The only reason we haven’t pursued this dream wine ourselves is due to the tiny quantities of fruit available and our love of Quasimodo.  The Beechworth Battely Vineyard component was a selection of barrels from a number of different ferments carefully selected to give finesse to the mid palate of this blend.

The Durif component was sourced from three vineyards; the Battely Vineyard in Beechworth, a mature and proven vineyard in Rutherglen along with the Mt Pilot Estate Vineyard in Eldorado. The Beechworth fruit is elegant and restrained, while the Rutherglen component brings power and concentration. The Mt Pilot Estate fruit sits somewhere in the middle. An incredible team in tandem."  Eldorado Road

Expert reviews

"Three grape varieties are sourced from four North East wine regions, each bringing its own particular qualities to bear. Most definitely medium bodied, emphatically approachable and full of drinking pleasure in layers of dark fruits, lifted spices, chocolate, tilled earth, warm oak and well-managed tannins, all seamlessly blended. Fab quality for the price. Drink by 2037."  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."