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  • Country ranking ?

    235
  • Producer ranking ?

    15
  • Decanting time

    1h
  • When to drink

    Now
  • Food Pairing

    Lamb

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The Story

Black Label, our iconic flagship, and the first ultra-premium wine made by Wolf Blass in 1973. Wolf’s aim was to create the finest red blend from the vintage and, 37 vintages later, the sentiment is as true today as it was then. Black Label enjoys a prestigious history, a multi-award winning wine which is, to this day, the only Australian wine to have won the coveted Royal Melbourne Wine Show’s Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy a record four times. Recognised on the world wine stage as a wine of distinction, heritage and pedigree, Black Label has an unparalleled reputation as a benchmark example of classic Australian wine.

The philosophy behind Black Label is simple: to take the year’s very best wines and weave them together into a synergistic whole, the resultant wine being greater than the sum of its parts. It is about creating a wine with many layers of flavour in a complex composition of intense fruit characters, magnificent structure, a rich lustrous texture, long velvety tannins and a lingering palate. 

The two major varietal players in Black Label are Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, which together enjoy a long-standing partnership as the most highly acclaimed and definitive of Australian red blends. Cabernet Sauvignon provides great structure and backbone, displaying intensity of flavour and fine, long tannins. Shiraz fills out the palate with rich, mouthfilling fruit, balancing the line of Cabernet to create a harmonious blend. The 2009 Black Label combines Cabernet Sauvignon from the Barossa Valley with Shiraz from McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek, lightly spiced with a hint of Langhorne Creek Malbec.

After fermentation and maturation, parcels of wine from individual vineyards undergo a scrupulous selection process to make the final Black Label grade. It is at this point that a little alchemy takes place. Blending is the ultimate masterstroke in creating Black Label, a highly creative exercise, relying on sensory skill, experience, and the winemakers’ ability to project how each wine will contribute to the blend and develop over time. The orchestration ensures that Black Label expresses the vision and style of Wolf Blass – quality, character and consistency.

Viticulture Meticulous vineyard selections from three outstanding viticultural regions come together to create a harmonious, balanced wine. Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from low yielding vineyards in the Barossa Valley contributes complex blackcurrant and plum, richness and depth. Shiraz from McLaren Vale brings warmth and opulence of fruit, while Shiraz and Malbec sourced from the Langhorne Creek flood plain provides additional structure, elegance and finesse along with an expressive regional eucalypt character.

Winemaking Harvested at optimum maturity and flavour ripeness, fruit from each vineyard was crushed, de-stemmed and fermented separately for seven to twelve days on skins. The ferments were allowed to warm naturally with a combination of plunging and gentle pumping over to maximise colour and flavour extraction. Mid-ferment the wine was cooled to extend fermentation, maximising time on skins and accentuating line and length. The wines were pressed off skins while still retaining a small amount of sugar, then transferred to barrel to complete fermentation, allowing a balanced integration of oak characters and enhancing texture and complexity.

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Vintage 1975

Australia / An uneven year with a wet winter prior to vintage, a cool January, followed by a hot, dry February and rain in March. The cool summer produced good white wines and medium weight red wines (although there were some outstanding exceptions).

In 1975 there were 7,958 hectares of vineyards in Barossa and 39,661 tonnes of wine grapes were crushed in that vintage.

Viticultural advisors promoted returning pruning cuttings to the soil for mulch and top grafting was also pushed as a cost effective method of changing varieties.

Winemakers started using high levels of the preservative SO2 (as high as 1000ppm) for juice storage.

Saltram (Dalgety) opened its central bottling hall connected to the winery by a pipeline which ran across the Angaston-Nuriootpa road. Winemaker Peter Lehmann made his first wines in new American Oak and remembers this as an outstanding year for Saltram Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Barons of the Barossa was formed as a wine fraternity with founding members Cyril Henschke, Sir Condor Laucke, Bill Seppelt, George Kolarivich, Wyndham Hill-Smith, Colin Gramp and Peter Lehmann.

The red wine boom was about to end as drinkers, urged by the Australian Wine Bureau, turned to white wine. Finally, table wine took over from fortifieds as the wine of choice for Australians.

Control from grape to bottle was lost at Leo Buring as the bottling line was relocated to Lindemans Cellars in Lidcombe, NSW. The company’s soft pack “bag in the box” packaging line was moved from Lidcombe to Chateau Leonay. In 1979 it was relocated again to Karadoc Winery, Redcliffs, Victoria.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Written Notes

80% cab from Langhorne Creek and 20% shiraz from the Barossa Valley. The trifecta. Wolf wins an unprecedented third Jimmy. One could argue that this is a case of the horse before the cart, in one sense (as Tom Robbins said, “des horse before des Cartes'). Was the Jimmy so famous before Wolf's triumphs or did Wolf, with typical clever marketing, promote it as such, turning it into our most coveted wine trophy and thereby establishing himself as the only three-time winner of it. A fourth comes much later. This is by far the best of the three early wins, as you'd expect from a much superior vintage. More mellow and integrated. Dark fruits, earth, dry herbs. Animal hide, bird's nest (not sure what I was thinking when I wrote that). Nicely perfumed. Well balanced, very fine tannins. Good life. Still has time ahead of it but feel free to enjoy it any time. A lovely old mature red, very impressive.
  • 92p
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Information

Origin

Barossa Valley, South Eastern

Other wines from this producer

Exclusive Release Adelaide Hills Chardonnay

‘Exclusive Release’ Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon

Grey Label Langhorne Creek Cabernet Shiraz

Makers' Project Pink Pinot Grigio

Platinum Label Medlands Vineyard Shiraz

Platinum ‘Medlands Vineyard’ Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon

Red Label

Red Label Chardonnay Pinot Noir Premium Cuvée

Shiraz Heritage Release

Wolf Blass Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz

Wolf Blass Cabernet Shiraz

Wolf Blass Red Label Shiraz Cabernet

Wolf Blass Yellow Label Cabernet Sauvignon

Wolf Blass Yellow Label Chardonnay

Wolf Blass Yellow Label Riesling

Wolff Blass Yellow Label Rosé

Yellow Label Shiraz

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