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Rockford Shiraz Basket Press

Last edited on 11/25/2022 by LindsayM
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THE 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.
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