Regarded as the best medium-sized red wine producer in Australia, Henschke has gone from strength over the past three decades under the guidance of winemaker Stephen and viticulturist Prue Henschke. The red wines fully capitalise on the very old, low-yielding, high quality vines and are superbly made with sensitive but positive use of small new oak. Hill of Grace is second only to Penfold’s Grange as Australia’s red wine icon. A founding member of Australia’s First Family of Wine.
The Mount Edelstone vineyard, situated in the Eden Valley, was planted in 1912 by Ronald Angas, a descendant of George Fife Angas, who founded South Australia. Unusual for its time, it was planted solely to shiraz. The ancient 500 million-year-old soils on the vineyard are deep red-brown clay-loam to clay, resulting in low yields from over 100 year-old dry-grown, ungrafted centenarian vines. First bottled as a single-vineyard wine in 1952, it became recognised as one of the greatest shiraz wines in Australia.
94 Points Robert Parker Jr.
A knock-out red, the 2000 Shiraz Mt. Edelstone reveals a brooding purple color, great intensity, and tremendous power yet overall there is a sense of restraint as well as admirable purity of character. No wimpish effort, it is a layered Shiraz that builds incrementally across the palate, offering expansive blackberry, earthy, peppery notes with smoke and wood in the background. This cuvee, produced from an 86-year old vineyard in the northern sector of Eden Valley, will be even better with 2-3 more years of bottle age