Torbreck The Factor Shiraz 2018
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Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The Factor is predominantly from the Gomersal and Marananga sub-regions of the Barossa, providing dense texture and richness to the palate with subtle notes of olive tapenade, saddle leather and minerals. Ripe aromas of Satsuma plum, wild blackberries, dark chocolate and five spice entwined with a dark core of espresso roast, ripe mulberries and saltbush. Brooding and densely packed, this lavish wine has ample generosity to cellar for more than 20 years, where it will slowly unravel its beguiling riches.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A pristine nose of ripe and intense blackberries, blueberries and redcurrants, as well as some sanguine, rust-like notes. This is an excellent edition of The Factor. I like the power and focus this wine delivers and, in 2018, it is a wine of great length and presence. Abundant ripe blackberries bathe the palate. Try from 2025.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Aged in about 50% new French oak and built for cellaring, the 2018 The Factor is a concentrated, structured Shiraz that should age well for up to two decades. Scents of cedar shavings and vanilla mark the nose, while the full-bodied palate folds in notes of ripe blackberries and mulberries, plus hints of baking spices. Complex, firm and age-worthy, with a long, focused finish, it should be at its best after about five more years.
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Decanter
Chock full of flavour, this charismatic Shiraz oozes Barossa from every pore. Fine tannins tightly frame black cherry-berry fruit, cep powder, cocoa and iron filings for a dry profile and compelling tension. In and among it all, notes of smoked meat, espresso, cedar, graphite, garrigue and violet creams snag the attention. Incisive acidity enhances length and drive.
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Wine Enthusiast
From old vines—some well over a century—in two subregions of northwestern Barossa, this has all the classic Torbreck red hallmarks. With a nose you could drive straight into, it's a bottomless well of plump plum, blackberry, mocha, black olive and bay leaf, with a cedar base notes. The mouthfeel is luscious with concentrated fruit and powerful, well-placed tannins. There's some alcohol heat here and a sheen of high gloss oak, too, but like a well-tailored suit or a timeless black dress, it has decades of shelf life and will always be in fashion. Drink over the next 20 years.
Cellar Selection -
Wine Spectator
Offers a rich mix of chocolate-covered espresso bean, juicy blueberry and wild blackberry flavors, with notes of palo santo, black truffle, cardamom, candied ginger and fresh tobacco. The tannins are dense but polished, providing a lovely structure for all of the complexity. Shiraz. Drink now.
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Torbreck, founded in 1994 by David Powell, is situated at Marananga on the western ridge of the Barossa. Since that time he has produced some of the world's finest 'Rhone varietal' wines, exclusively from Barossa fruit; this has been acknowledged by the wine press in Europe, America and Australia. The overwhelming majority of his vines are dry-grown, nearly all are 80 - 125 years old and are tended and harvested by hand.
The wines have an extraordinary combination of power, intesity, complexity and great finesse, and bearing in mind the age of the vines and the laughably low yields, no Torbreck wine could ever be accused of being heavy, cloying or over-extracted.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
Historically and presently the most important wine-producing region of Australia, the Barossa Valley is set in the Barossa zone of South Australia, where more than half of the country’s wine is made. Because the climate is very hot and dry, vineyard managers work diligently to ensure grapes reach the perfect levels of phenolic ripeness.
The intense heat is ideal for plush, bold reds, particularly Shiraz on its own or Rhône Blends. Often Shiraz and Cabernet partner up for plump and powerful reds.
While much less prevalent, light-skinned varieties such as Riesling, Viognier or Semillon produce vibrant Barossa Valley whites.
Most of Australia’s largest wine producers are based here and Shiraz plantings date back as far as the 1850s or before. Many of them are dry farmed and bush trained, still offering less than one ton per acre of inky, intense, purple juice.