We had a visit from distant lands, a pleasure that was denied us for so long, when in May we the pleasure of hosting a dinner in the private room at M Victoria with Ian Hongell, chief winemaker of Torbreck, the iconic wine producer of Barossa Valley in South Australia.

It’s not always easy to break down what is genuinely unique about a fine wine producer; this is not an issue for Torbreck. Through carefully husbandry and most especially an exceptional and unique climate, Barossa Valley is home to some of the oldest wine producing vines in the world, and the very oldest Syrah/Shiraz vines. Ian made no bones whatsoever about that fact that Torbreck took its stylistic cues from the Rhône Valley; the grapes grown are a “who’s who” of Rhône’s most famous, including Shiraz, Grenache, Mourvèdre (in Australia known as “Mataro”) and for whites Viognier, Marsanne and Roussanne. But remarkably, because of a mercifully phylloxera-free terroir, many precious old vines, now nearing 160 years old, are many decades older than any productive vines in the Rhône, or indeed anywhere else in the so-called “Old World” of wine.

We were treated to a variety of whites, but mainly reds and got to see how wonderfully well these wines age – and not just the big names at the top of the range. 2013 Les Amis Grenache was a revelation: incredibly elegant in a way that doesn’t bare in resemblance to the oaky fruit bombs, that at certain times have tarnished Australia’s wine reputation. Barossa has a reputation for making big and bombastic wines but in fact the truth is rather more nuanced – as are many of the wines.

Ian was asked about the challenges of global warming and separately about the pressures of maintaining some of the oldest vines in the world in such a harsh environment. He was very straight-forward in his replies. The winemaker has many tricks up their sleeve, and as the climate changes at a certain pace, he is confident that winemaking practices can adapt ahead of that pace. Tending old vines is a matter of giving them the necessary care… and trying to avoid running over them with a tractor!

The stars of the show were the two last flights. Firstly, Torbreck RunRig 2019 and 2014. This, of any wine in the range, is the one the has cemented Torbreck’s reputation as world class, and one of the leading lights of Australian wine. It is here that the oldest Syrah vines on the planet are put to work. In what is a harsh environment these gnarled ancestral vines reach deep into the soil and created something quite exceptional. To survive in a dry and often hot environment, the vines have had to be widely spaced and low yielding (the exact opposite of the approach in Bordeaux and Burgundy) and the grapes therefore have exceptional concentration. Remarkably looking at Wine Advocate scores, RunRig since 1998 hasn’t scored lower than 97 points – ten of those vintages are 99 points or more.

The last flight of all was two vintages of the Laird from an exceptional 2-hectare site in the Maranga sub-region of Barossa, planted in the 1950s. This is a rare beast – and vies with Penfolds Grange and Hill of Grace as Australia’s most high profile (and expensive) wine. Trying the 100-point 2012 vintage was a treat – although the wine has at least another two decades to evolve.

One guest asked – an excellent question and well answered – what Ian was most proud of. He said that he was proud to part of a small community (i.e., the people of Barossa Valley) that work together for a single goal – to make excellent wine – that has such a global reach. Torbreck and other top names of the region are appreciated everywhere, and all of this fundamentally boils down to a community, largely of Silesian settlers (originally from a small area of Poland, Czechia and Germany), that have farmed the land for now seven generations. With generations of family wine growers stretching back to the 19th century tending these venerable vines, Torbreck stretches the concept of “New World”, and also of how much finesse can be achieved in a terroir renowned for producing blockbuster monoliths.