Langton’s Selections
Rosemount Balmoral Syrah
Bob Oatley established Rosemount Estate in 1969 after a successful career in the coffee industry. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for his pioneering contribution to coffee in Papua New Guinea. Rosemount Estate, lead by Bob Oatley and Chris Hancock, were leaders in the emerging Australian export markets during the 1980s and 1990s. Their extraordinary confidence, energy and market success inspired a whole generation of Australian wine marketers. Indeed they paved the way for the entire Australian industry.
Rosemount is an important Australian brand, but its performance on the secondary wine market is erratic. The personality and charm of the Oatley family was inextricably linked to performance in the market. The original Rosemount Estate was founded in 1864 by a German immigrant Carl Brecht. The early wines won medals in both Montpellier and Bordeaux. Rosemount’s home turf is the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales. How
Langton’s Selections
Rosemount Balmoral Syrah
Bob Oatley established Rosemount Estate in 1969 after a successful career in the coffee industry. He was awarded the British Empire Medal for his pioneering contribution to coffee in Papua New Guinea. Rosemount Estate, lead by Bob Oatley and Chris Hancock, were leaders in the emerging Australian export markets during the 1980s and 1990s. Their extraordinary confidence, energy and market success inspired a whole generation of Australian wine marketers. Indeed they paved the way for the entire Australian industry.
Rosemount is an important Australian brand, but its performance on the secondary wine market is erratic. The personality and charm of the Oatley family was inextricably linked to performance in the market. The original Rosemount Estate was founded in 1864 by a German immigrant Carl Brecht. The early wines won medals in both Montpellier and Bordeaux. Rosemount’s home turf is the Upper Hunter Valley of New South Wales. However it has vineyards in McLaren Vale.
The successes of its Reserve Shiraz on the show circuit and in the market lead to the release of Rosemount’s Balmoral McLaren Vale Syrah. At one stage it was on track to become something of a superstar. Then the market fell into a malaise after Fosters Wine Estates wrestled control. Indeed the entire Rosemount Brand endured a remarkable downturn. Great effort has been made to reverse fortunes. Innovative diamond bottle packaging and renewed marketing energy has brought new vigour and interest, but on the secondary wine market the Balmoral Syrah represents good value rather than a beacon of the ultra-fine Shiraz genre.
Balmoral is named after the Oatley family homestead. Made from dry-grown, low-yielding vineyards between 40 to 100 years old, Balmoral is able to combine perfume, structure and density from 3 distinctive soil types: the sandy loams of Blewitt Springs, the darker soils of McLaren Flat, and the terra rossa over limestone near Chapel Hill. Although a proportion of the wine is barrel fermented, the oak plays a supporting role to the fruit. These are deeply coloured wines with powerful, plummy, black fruits and dark chocolate aromas underpinned by American oak - hugely concentrated and velvety with soft-edged tannins, plush fruit and a firm finish. The wine is made for the long haul.
Andrew Caillard MW, Langton's
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