In today’s tasting David Allen MW, Wine-Searcher’s Wine Director, continues his look at the wines of the Barossa Valley’s Rockford Winey. Here he tastes a a rose from an unusual grape variety Alicante Bouchet. The wine concerned is from the 2022 vintage.
Rockford Wines is a wine producer based in Australia’s iconic Barossa Valley. It was founded in the early 1980s by Robert O’Callaghan and is one of Australia’s more well-known wineries, making top Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.
O’Callaghan began as a trainee winemaker in 1965 at Seppelt in Rutherglen, Victoria. In 1971, he headed west to the Barossa and purchased two hectares (five acres) of land beneath the Barossa ranges. He planted vines and built a winery in the style of the 1850’s stone cottage on the land. Rockford’s inaugural vintage was in 1984.
In addition to the small home vineyard, Rockford works in partnership with several independent wine growers around Barossa, with vineyards in Kalimna, Ebenezer, Moppa Springs, the Eden Valley and central Barossa. This gives Rockford a wide variety of soil types, mesoclimates and altitudes from which to source its grapes.
Many of the vines are planted on their own rootstocks and range up to 130 years old, giving intense, concentrated grapes, and wines with the same attributes. Winemaking is largely traditional, using basket presses, open-topped slate fermenters and a 1880s petrol-driven Bagshaw destemmer/crusher.
Rockford’s flagship wine is its Basket Press Shiraz, which is aged in French and American oak hogshead barrels for two years prior to release. It is one of Australia’s more sought-after wines and has regularly achieved high scores from critics.
There are several other top wines in the portfolio, including the Rifle Range Cabernet Sauvignon, the Sparkling Black Shiraz and the Rod and Spur Cabernet/Shiraz blend.
Discover more about this wine, its pricing and availability by following this link to the Wine-Searcher website: https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/rockford+alicante+bouchet+rose+barossa+valley+south+australia/2022
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