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| Drinking Windows and Values |
| Community Tasting History |
| Community Tasting Notes (average 93 pts. and median of 93 pts. in 2 notes) - hiding notes with no text | | | Tasted by yodamark on 12/10/2020 & rated 93 points: From one of Barossa worst vintages but from one of its greatest makers who even in such difficult vintages still make superlative wines by being able to source best fruit form many vineyards all over the valley. 89 BP is another of the weaker vintage Rockford that do not drink inferior to more famous vintages at all. this 89 despite the bottle leaking was still dark and dense and richly fruited. It has a slight VA and gruff edge that improved in time but dried out within an hour. I suspect perfectly stored bottles are still as good as 90. Quintessentially Rockford in structure though with trademark earthy red/black ripe fruits and hints of sweet rubbery spices and rich black soil. A little tannic and dry on back palate but i believe this is just this bottle only. My BIL tells me i have had it before but i could not recall ( i was probably p155ed). Must have been a few years ago. he reckons it was with 89 Grange. Anyway in comparing the prices for 90 and 91 the 89 is a steal and it packs a gastric punch way above it average. (631 views) | | | Tasted by ubercuvee on 6/23/2008 & rated 93 points: Sof, supple, with excellent definition, freshness and that classic Barossa aromatics (plum/choc notes). If this is how off vintage BasketPress ages - buy all you can from the "on vintages". Not a powerful wine, but no worse off. (3159 views) |
| Rockford Producer Website
Winery Note:
I was born into a family of grape growers and grew up in vineyards and wineries, where I inherited a great respect for the pioneer Australian wine trade. All that I’ve experienced is reflected in the Rockford winemaking principles; Quality winemaking is a skilled craft that consumes a very large part of one’s life, so it must give you joy. That joy is extended if the maker can sell the wine directly to those who drink it for their pleasure.
My grandparents on both sides and also 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 winemakers, 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.
In 1971 I purchased an 1850’s stone settler’s cottage and outbuildings on five acres of land in the village of Krondorf, which sits in the shadow of the Barossa Ranges, in the heart of the Barossa Valley. The courtyard shaped winery which grew from this was built in the same style and from the same materials as the original buildings.
The vintage shed is equipped with plant from the pioneer era – I collected these valuable pieces when they were discarded by other Australian wineries 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.
To me the winery is not just a building but a large piece of sculpture with Barossa wine running through its veins, hopefully when you walk into the courtyard you’ll instantly feel a sense of all that it represents.
Wine is crafted, not created. The skill is to capture and enhance the fleeting flavours that grapes give from their variety and extract from the earth, then bottle these as a living record of the vintage they represent.
Rockford wines are made from established Barossa varieties which form an important part of our winemaking heritage, in a style that best reflects the vineyards, the winemaker’s attitude and the climate in which we live.
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, attitudes and equipment to produce elegant but rich, earthy, soft, generous wines that will age - the kind that I drank in my youth.
- Robert O'CallaghanRockford Shiraz Basket PressTHE STORY
Robert O'Callaghan's Rockford Basket Press Shiraz is one of the Barossa Valley's most important wines. It entered Langton's Classification of Australian Wine in 2000 and was promoted to the highest – 'Exceptional' – category in 2005.
It is sold almost exclusively to Rockford's own mailing list customers and is rarely made available to the retail market.
Basket Press manages to combine the concentration and power of the traditional Barossa Shiraz style of the 1950s and '60s with the supple freshness of contemporary winemaking.
It has achieved its high status in a relatively short time: the first vintage was 1984.
Rockford’s squat, high–shouldered brown bottle - reminiscent of 1940s red wine packaging - is instantly recognisable.
Robert O’Callaghan’s evocative Rockford Basket Press Shiraz is a tribute to the Barossa’s 19th and early 20th-century heritage.
Made from grapes sourced from 60 to 140-year-old dry-grown vineyards (most from independent growers) across a range of Barossa soils, altitudes and micro-climates, the wine represents a rare and important post-colonial Australian aesthetic.
This soft and medium bodied style, with an earthy quality showing through bottle age, echoes the landscape of the Barossa and references the great mid 20th-century wines of legendary winemaker Colin Preece.
Labour-intensive winemaking practices, a culture of craftsmanship and meticulous attention to detail culminate in one of Australia’s greatest and most-loved wines
THE WINEMAKING
Fruit is hand picked then vinified using classic Barossa techniques including a 19th-century wooden Bagshaw crusher, open fermentation and basket pressing. The batches a matured primarily in seasoned 300-litre French and American oak hogsheads and 2500-litre vats for two years before a rigorous selection to determine the final assemblage.
THE WINE
Neatly juxtaposed between powerful and elegant, the Rockford Basket Press Shiraz is beautifully tensioned with exquisite dark berry fruits, inky complexity, underlying roasted chestnut notes and long, muscular but precise tannins.
Produced with selected small parcels of old, dry grown Barossa Shiraz from nearly thirty of the Barossa’s finest grape growing families. The vineyards are situated in different sub-regions throughout the Barossa, which adds to the complexity and depth of flavours. The wine is hand made using equipment from the turn of the last century, then aged in American and French oak for two years. All this contributes to our objective to make the very highest quality traditional, soft, deep coloured, earthy Australian red wine which will bottle age.Shiraz Varietal article (Wikipedia) | Varietal character (Appellation America)Australia Wine Australia (Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation) | Australian Wines (Wikipedia)South Australia South Australian Wine Industry Association | South Australian Wines (Wikipedia)Barossa Barossa Wine (South Australian Tourism Commission)Barossa Valley Barossa Valley |
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