Rusden Boundaries & Longhop Old Vines Grenache

We’re always delighted when we secure sensational wines at unbelievable prices and have the opportunity to provide sublime wine tasting experiences to our customers.

This week we feature three superb Australian wines – the 2005 Rusden Boundaries Cabernet Sauvignon, the 2005 Longhop Old Vine Grenache and the 2007 Torzi Matthews Frost Dodger Riesling. These rare, limited production boutique wines are currently en route from Holland and will be available for delivery from Wednesday September 5.

Rusden is owned by 5th generation Barossa grape grower Christine Canute, her husband Dennis and talented winemaker-son Christian. This is a small boutique winery with just 40 acres of vineyard. All the fruit is sourced from their own vineyards and made on site, producing small batches of top quality hand made wines. Christian honed his skills with the basket press at Rockford and Robert Parker observed that he has "a unique ability to produce wines of great finesse combined with the intensity and power obtained from Barossa Valley fruit."

The Boundaries Cabernet is a remarkable wine but rarely reviewed. Indeed, despite the stellar scores for most vintages from Robert Parker, there are no tasting notes for the 2005. So we tried the 2005 ourselves prior to confirming our purchase and are delighted to confirm that it’s every bit as good as the 2003 and 2004 which we used to list a few years ago. You can view our tasting video of the wine with Helen Tate on Winedirect TV.

Torzi Matthews is a food and winemaking partnership between Domenic Torzi and Tracy Matthews. In 1996 Dom and Tracy stumbled across a small, frost-pocketed hollow in the beautiful Mt McKenzie, Eden Valley and fell in love with the area for its remoteness and its diverse thin soils. Both Jancis Robinson and Jamie Goode are huge fans with Jancis observing that "Domenic Torzi is typical of the new generation of Australian wine artisans, hand-making wine from a small patch of vines... Their ten hectares of vines went into the ground in 1996 and Domenic was anxious to get to grips with a really special piece of land. So much is made of the Barossa and to a lesser extent Clare Valleys that the beautiful Eden Valley, its unpaved roads lined with gums, is often overlooked. Yalumba and Henschke are the king and queen. Torzi Matthews is definitely an upstart serf."

The Longhop and Old Plains range of wines are produced by Domenic Torzi and Tim Freeland from vineyards on the Adelaide Plains – as Jamie Goode notes, the hottest viticultural region in South Australia but a region which has fallen out of favour by the early part of the 20th century. Together with Tim, Dominic’s mission was rejuvenate the reputation of the Adelaide Plains and they sourced old vine cuttings from tiny vineyard blocks and planted 10 acres of their own, releasing the first wines in 2004. These small vineyards are true masterpieces of wine grape flavour, weathered, gnarly and magnificent. Jamie Goode tasted a mixture of the 2004s and 2005s on a visit there some years ago and thought that the wines were fantastic. We secured a good parcel of the 2005 Old Vine Grenache and the notes speak for themselves.

Finally you may have noted the reference above to Winedirect TV. Here at Winedirect we make no secret of the fact that we really care about what the critics say, and why not? Whilst it is a scientific fact that wine tasting is a personal thing, it is good to consult a range of the world’s most respected palates in order to get an idea of how good a wine is. However, that does not mean that we do not have our own opinion about the wines that we sell. Hence, we decided to create Winedirect TV so that we can deliver our thoughts on the wines we love the most, in an interactive, informative yet informal way. We really hope you enjoy listening to and viewing our thoughts with our top tasters Helen Tate and Alex Down! http://www.winedirect.co.uk/winedirect-tv