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Agricola Vintners

2022

‘Theel’s Handfibel’

Shiraz   |   Barossa Valley - Australia
Shelf Talker Spec Sheet Wine Label Bottle Image

About

‘Theel’s Handfibel’ is the name of the 1880s Moculta School alphabet chart that Callum found uses (with permission from the local Barossa Archives) as the font for the place names on his labels. It’s a blend of the sites that went into this year’s ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘Kalimna Sands’ wines, namely the esteemed Hoffmann Dallwitz block, the Dimchurch Home Old vineyard and Asbroek’s Old Vine vineyard in Kalimna. This is another stellar wine from old vines in the Barossa by the young talent, Callum Powell.

The Shiraz grapes were hand harvested and placed as intact clusters in a closed stainless steel tank. The juice fermented over the course of three to four weeks, after which the wine was racked to a used barriques where it remained for twelve months. The wine was bottled without fining or filtration, and it received just a small dosage of sulfur.

Stats

  • Grapes: 100% Shiraz
  • Vineyard: Hoffmann (Dallwitz & Dimchurch Home Old) - Asbroek (Kalimna 'Old Vines')
  • Vine Age: 50-70-years-old
  • Soil Type: Ironstone, red clay, and sand
  • Viticulture: Practicing organic
  • Fermentation: Native – 100% whole-cluster in closed stainless-steel tank
  • Skin Contact: 3-4 weeks
  • Aging: 12 months in old barriques
  • Alcohol: 13.5%
  • Total SO2: 40 ppm
  • Total Production: 203 cases

Tasting Notes

This is a fresh yet concentrated Barossa Shiraz, blending across three iconic sites. There is a savory element of black olive that travels, with plums, anise, and nutmeg, from the nose to the mouth. There, you’ll find ripe tannins and a menthol lift. Like a kaleidoscope, the flavors bounce and collide until they settle into something breathtaking.

Press & Reviews

The Wine Front

96

"Beautifully set, fresher feeling rendition of Barossa shiraz though there is no scrimping on the intensity and concentration here. Quite a bit of ripe and stewed plum, black olive tapenade, sweet earthiness, charred-sweet spice, anise, game meat, cocoa powder and crushed rock – what a ride! It’s a rich, rambunctious red of incredible flesh and yet sinew too. Tannins are stellar, if not a bit nebbiolo-like in their succulence and trim. It sloshes into the palate then finds a muscular flex, a cool yet somewhat game meaty finish, a load of dried herbs in there likewise. Cornucopia of things going on, all meshed so well. Whoa!"

- Mike Bennie

Wine Advocate

95

"This is a combination of Ebenezer fruit (Hoffmann) and Kalimna (Asbroek) and the only blended wine in the 2022 suite of releases. 'Theel's Handfibel is an 1800s school chart I found digging through the Barossa Archives,' says winemaker Callum Powell, 'which is now the typeface used to communicate place names on the labels.' The 2022 Theel’s Handfibel Shiraz is black, black, black in all ways—black ants, tea, graphite, crushed rocks, sand, blackberry, mulberry, pepper, petrichor and star anise. Gritty tannins shape the fruit in the mouth, yet for all the heavy-handed descriptors that the wine invokes, it remains light and pure in the mouth. It is kind of startling, really."

- Erin Larkin

Producer


Agricola Vintners

Region


Barossa Valley

Country


Australia

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