Made from 100-year-old shiraz vines in the Barossa Valley, The Iconic captures Australian fruit at its very best in the bottle. It is therefore no surprise then that the new release also sits as Calabria's most expensive wine.
Despite the $175 RRP however, The Iconic is a wine seriously worth stocking. Not only has Head Winemaker and third generation family member, Bill Calabria created a wine that tastes great, but a wine that also speaks to the quality of Australian produce and the opportunity for other wineries to overcome current challenges in the industry by not cutting back on price.
“Due to the oversupply, everyone’s tried cutting back on cost because they’re struggling to sell their product", Bill told journalists. "But when you cut back on cost, you cut back on quality and that is one thing I have never done. I don’t care what the cost is, it’s got to be made the same; that's critical and even more critical for us because we’re a family company."
Instead, Bill believes wineries need to wait out the recent oversupply and keep costs consistent, highlighting the damage lowered pricing has had on the reputation of Australian wine overseas.
"Our dollars dropped, hopefully the free trade agreement will give us a little bit of an edge and there haven't been many grapes planted in the last five years, so we might come back into balance, but we’ve got to learn from our previous mistakes.
"We need to do things in a way that means when we send our wine overseas, consumers don't just say Calabria makes great wine, but that Australia makes great wine, because we've really lost that reputation. Only now have we started getting consumers in America to look at our wines seriously.
“But it’s not only us that have got to do that, other wineries have got to do it as well for the sake of the industry."
The release of The Iconic marks an important and new direction for Calabria, who have taken time to listen to the market and refused to make concessions on their pricing. The Iconic has already received 96 points from James Halliday and is expected to do really well in market, with a 2013 of the wine already in bottle.
“We didn’t want to make the best wine that we then couldn’t sell, so we spoke a lot to our customers about the domestic Australian market and the Asian market, which is so significant and important to us as a wine industry", Bill’s son and Sales Manager at Calabria Wines, Andrew Calabria explained. "We looked at all the elements that would create a product that not only tastes really good, but will also sell and I think we’ve achieved that in this style of wine."
“It’s not offensive, it’s not over the top, it’s not a one glass wonder and these are all the paths we didn’t want to go down, because it’s a big investment as a family to have a continuation vintage after vintage and to hold stock and make these wines, so it was important for us to get it right the first time, which the 2012 has actually shaped up to be", Andrew concluded.
The Iconic Grand Reserve Barossa Valley Shiraz 2012
The inaugural vintage was hand-harvested by Bill before being placed into traditional open vats for fermentation and pressed to barrel. It was then matured in a blend of American and French oak for 18 months prior to being laid down in bottle to mature for a further 12.
To drink, it is silky and smooth, with wonderful acidity and savoury undertones. The wine develops nicely in the glass with beautiful berry fruit and a touch of well integrated oak. Overall, it is an approachable, not too overpowering wine that has still managed to retain complexity in flavour. This is a wine that can be enjoyed now or put away for a couple of years to see what further enjoyment it may offer.
The Iconic is available directly from Calabria Family Wines.
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