2013 Torbreck Descendant

Community Tasting Notes (9) Avg Score: 92.8 points

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  12/26/2021 - smenzies wrote: 91 Points

  Decanted an hour. A big Barossa Shiraz with overblown fruit expressions. Not sure whether this will improve though

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  3/6/2021 - sid_loves_wine Likes this wine: 94 Points

  2013 was the year David Powell was ousted from Torbreck. I don't know all the details of the story or anything, and I'm not 100% sure if this was the last vintage he produced, but this was an incredibly awesome wine, literally awe-inducing in how it managed to capture such incredible richness and elegance at the same time. I wouldn't call it "complex" I don't think, but a miracle of character and structure.
  
  Super heady, effortless perfume of blackberry pie, plum compote, maybe liqueur like Chambord, fresh vanilla beans, cedar planks, coconut, woodsmoke, and leather. It has some dark baked fruit character, but I wouldn't really call it "porty"- I think these huge Barossa wines actually show better a little younger like this (many are aged 20 years or more), as at this stage the fruit still has some vivacity, even if the oak is super-present. Doesn't smell jammy or cloying, just rich and forward.
  
  This balance continues even more clearly on the palate, showing extremely black, smoky, even somewhat peppery fruits and a boatload of cedar- obviously this is a powerful wine, but 15.5% ABV feels fully deliberate here, not hot nor cloying, which is just wild to me as a lover of Northern Rhone wine. No, it's not mistakable for anything but a huge-ass Barossa, but it also showed a genuinely crazy amount of acidity for the style (same acid levels as a couple of Guigal Hermitage bottles I've had from the mid-2000s, at least medium), and an extremely elegant tannic structure that felt ultra-silky, playing fully in the background.
  
  My wife REALLY hates huge jammy fruit bomb wines and said she really enjoyed this- a friend described it as resembling an elegant bourbon. Not the kind of thing I always look for at $100 (I value "complexity" and acidity more than power in wine), but there's no denying this was super-well made for the style (and just delicious.) In a perfect spot too- younger than this and the oak/tannin would have been less integrated, but much older and the fruit would probably begin to fade too much to support the heat.

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  8/29/2020 - Stray Cat Likes this wine: 94 Points

  After a string of opening other wines which have disappointed, how great it was to open and enjoy this beautiful wine. Absolute cracker. We enjoyed it with a grilled rib eye with a south asian touch. One of the best wines we have had this year.

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  5/20/2019 - Stray Cat Likes this wine: 92 Points

  I wished we had shown more patience after opening as the wine was so much more balanced and showing its true qualities only after about an hour.

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  3/26/2017 - Stevenwsims Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Bommarito Tasting at the Ritz

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View all 9 Community Tasting Notes

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