Rockford Basket Press Shiraz 2004

Top 100 Wines of 2006 - Tony Love

"Rockford can only be described as an icon, no matter how overused that word may be."  James Halliday

Rockford Basket Press Shiraz, like Penfolds Grange, is one of Australia’s most collected and most cherished red wines. Fruit is sourced from some of the best old Barossa vineyards with vine age from 60 to 130 years.

"We have a beautiful wine on our hands here. It is the best Basket Press Shiraz since 1999. It's got a beautiful nose, a beautiful palate, a beautiful frame of tannin, and succulent, smoochy length. I could kiss this darling all night long, and God how I wish that I could - every night. Barossa shiraz - you know the flavours. Low oak, black fruit, coal and earth. Once you finish each mouthful, it still feels like it's got a firm, mesmerising grip on you. One sip, and there really is no escape."  Campbell Mattinson

Expert reviews

"Join the gentlemen's club. The icon is all class, its royal nose exuding clove and black berry, cedar oak and earthy notes as well. The fruit is perfectly handled to meet the silkiest of textures, the wine lingering for ages. Ethereal."  Tony Love, The Advertiser - 97 points and Top 100 Wines of 2006 

"Rockford Basket Press Shiraz 2004: this is the moment I've been waiting for …  We have a beautiful wine on our hands here. It is the best Basket Press Shiraz since 1999. I'm one of those people who loves the pants off Rockford in the Barossa Valley, but who also feels as if the standard hasn't quite been what it once was over the past four or five years. It's been good, but not the superstar we all know it to be - it hasn't dropped, it's just taken a bit of a buffering, to my taste. The 2004 takes that bad attitude of mine and puts a cork in it. It's got a beautiful nose, a beautiful palate, a beautiful frame of tannin, and succulent, smoochy length. I could kiss this darling all night long, and God how I wish that I could - every night. Barossa shiraz - you know the flavours. Low oak, black fruit, coal and earth. Once you finish each mouthful, it still feels like it's got a firm, mesmerising grip on you. One sip, and there really is no escape. Drink: 2006-2018."  Campbell Mattinson, Winefront Monthly - 96 points

"A complete Barossa traditional shiraz; moderate alcohol, oak and tannins, yet full of flavour and character. Has taken full advantage of a very good vintage. In its own-branded, high-shouldered brown bottle. Cork. 14.5º alc. Drink by 2019."  James Halliday, Halliday Wine Companion - 96 points

"Aromas of plum, raspberry, turkish delight, milk chocolate and leather with a tasteful application of vanilla oak. Medium to full bodied palate. Not a blockbuster by any means. There are flavours of berry, plum, milk chocolate and leather. Smooth fine tannins. Really beautiful supple texture. Long berry and leather finish. This is right up there with my two favourite BP vintages - 99 and 96. No shame in opening one now either although a 1/3 of a bottle hardly moved when left overnight. Drink : 2006 - 2016+."  Gary Walsh, Winefront Monthly - 96 points

"A classic, long-living example of why 2004 is so highly rated. Its deep, brambly aromas of dark cherries, blueberries, blackberries, sweet coconut ice/vanilla oak overlie meaty, smoky and slightly reductive complexity. Deeply and richly layered, it's ripe and juicy, delivering a warm and fractionally spirity expression of small berries and smoky undertones framed by firm but velvet-smooth and loose-knit tannins. It's natural and balanced, without a hint of overcooked fruit. Drink 2016-2024+."  Jeremy Oliver - 95 points

Awards

Top 100 Wines of 2006 - Tony Love

About the winery

Rockford Wines is a small boutique wine producer based in South Australia's Barossa Valley. They produce high quality traditional wines made from some of the best old Barossa vineyards. Rockford is best known for their Basket Press Shiraz and Sparkling Black Shiraz, which are produced in limited quantities.

Founder and winemaker, Robert O'Callaghan, purchased an 1850s stone settler’s cottage and outbuildings on five acres of land in the village of Krondorf in 1971. He then gradually built a courtyard shaped winery in the same style and from the same materials as the original buildings. O'Callaghan starting making wine in 1984 and Rockford was born.

"During the twenty years prior to establishing Rockford, I worked for several Barossa winemakers. This allowed me access to many of the finest Barossa growers, so by the time I started Rockford, I knew exactly the kind of wine I wanted to make and precisely which vineyard would give me the grapes I needed. It also allowed me to continue the established tradition of winemakers building long-term partnerships with growers rather than owning their own vineyards.

Many of the growers have vines that were planted on their own roots, sixty to one hundred years ago. The partnership not only gives Rockford access to exceptional grapes from ancient vines but also provides consistency and reliability that is not possible from a single vineyard.

The vintage shed is equipped with plant from the pioneer era – I collected these valuable pieces when other Australian wineries discarded them as they modernised. This allows Rockford to carry on the traditional Australian winemaking techniques, but more importantly, the winery is the same scale, age and pace as our growers’ vineyards.

I have always lived in and feel most comfortable with the warm Mediterranean climate of the Barossa where grapes ripen easily. My preference is to make the wine by hand with traditional methods, attitude, and equipment to produce rich, earthy, soft, generous wines that will age; the kind that I drank in my youth.

My grandparents on both sides and my parents were grape growers, so my childhood was spent in their vineyards. My parents moved to North Eastern Victoria where my Father managed a vineyard for Australia’s then-largest family winemaker, Seppelts. In 1965 I followed a natural path and started as a trainee winemaker at Seppelt’s Rutherglen winery.

It was a wonderful apprenticeship in the old, ordered, slow and gentle Australian wine trade. The wines I drank, the winemakers from previous generations with whom I associated and everything I absorbed in that period had a major influence on the way Rockford is today. Although I’ve spent all my life in vineyards and wineries, the pleasure I derive from walking through rows of vines or casks filled with wine has not diminished."  Robert O'Callaghan

Robert O'Callaghan belongs to a genre of visionary winemakers that include Max Schubert, Peter Lehmann, Jeffrey Grosset, Brian Croser and David Hohnen. His protégés include Chris Ringland and Dave Powell.

Rockford Wines has had a profound influence on winemaking philosophy and wine style in the Barossa. Providing the inspiration for a whole generation of winemakers 'the Rockford school' embraces the inherent qualities of old vine Shiraz: the physicality of winemaking where muscle and personal touch transform the process into an art-form; the traditional tools of trade (basket press, open fermenter) and the complementary nuances of American and French oak maturation.