2018 Seppeltsfield Wines Barossa Shiraz 750 ml

If there’s one importer who you’ve GOT to listen to about Australian wines, it’s Jane Lopes.

We’ve known her since she was running the beverage show at Nashville’s renowned Catbird Seat. Since then, she smoked her Master Sommelier exam, worked at NY’s Eleven Madison Park, moved to Australia to head up the wine program at Melbourne's Attica (which made San Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list), and now runs an Aussie-only import shop with Jonathan Ross, her Master Somm husband. They’ve even got a book on the horizon called How to Drink Australian. 

Importers of iconic and emerging Australian properties, Jane and Jonathan have unrivaled insight into the wine scene Down Under—and they introduced us to the 2018 Seppeltsfield Barossa Shiraz, an under-the-radar gem. A spot-on, textbook, opulent, old-vine Shiraz that earned 94-point Editors’ Choice honors from Wine Enthusiast, it’s a purple-black stunner that captivated us as soon as its deep waves of black fruit and wild herbs faded on our palate.  

Founded in 1851 by Joseph Ernst Seppelt, Seppeltsfield’s 1881 gravity-fed winery—mothballed from the mid-1980s until 2010, when it was proudly restored—is arguably both the most historic and most innovative in the region.

The “W.R.” on the label is for the Western Ridge of the Seppeltsfield property, where the old-vine Shiraz (60–80 years) grows between 500 and 1000 feet above sea level, yielding grapes with an acidity and structure that accent the ripe fruit flavors generated under the hot Barossa sun. 

This is a great way to get reacquainted with the feeling you had the first time you fell in love with a bottle of Barossa Shiraz.