The Lineage Story
Scyras, Shiraz, or Syrah, some synonyms for the same variety, were first mentioned by Faujas de Saint-Fond in the eighteenth century; however, Shiraz origins stretch further back to the first century. It resulted from a spontaneous vineyard crossing between the near-extinct Dureza from France's Ardèche region and the Savoie region's Mondeuse Blanche. Both varieties are now more famous as Shiraz parents than their wines.
The wines of the Northern Rhône and the Cornas, Côte Rotie and Hermitage appellations established Shiraz's reputation. In 1832, it arrived in Australia as part of the Busby Collection, comprising cuttings from the Garden of Luxembourg and the Montpellier Collection with Scyraz cuttings from the hill of Hermitage. It is also worth highlighting the MacArthur brothers, John, William and James. They imported cuttings from France in 1817 and propagated them at their family nursery at Camden Park, southwest of Sydney.
These two historic sources became the foundations of the Australian wine sector and gave Shiraz its first opportunity to thrive in its new homeland.
The Lindner family of Langmeil Winery is the custodian of two of Australia's most historic vineyards and is recognised as an old vine Shiraz specialist.
In the Barossa Valley, the Freedom vineyard in Tanunda (originally Langmeil village) is believed to be planted in 1843 by Christian Auricht, making it the world's oldest surviving Shiraz vineyard. Auricht and his family fled religious persecution seeking freedom of worship in the Barossa. The vines' roots run deep in the ancient Barossa dirt and have accumulated the knowledge of growing seasons past to become one of the Barossa's viticultural treasures.
In the Eden Valley, an exceptional east-facing site is among the Barossa high country's oldest pre-phylloxera Shiraz vineyards. The Pure Eden vineyard, located in the Flaxman Valley sub-region, was planted by the Angas family during the 1890s from cuttings from the neighbouring Poonawatta vineyard, established by the Heggie family. The Lindner family took ownership in 2012 and has invested significant time and money in vineyard improvements.
Paul Lindner, Langmeil Winery's family and director of winemaking, has been refining these wines for 25 years. In 2017 he was tasked with doing something he had never done before: taking these rare, unique, historic parcels and
blending them into a new, thoroughly thought out wine. He knew that while these two vineyards produced wines of significance as single-vineyard expressions if a small proportion of the two vineyards were combined, it would result in an exemplar of the region's diverse geology and disparate growing seasons. In 2017, we picked Freedom Shiraz on 31 March and Pure Eden Shiraz on 28 April.
All this is to make a wine that celebrates Shiraz, its journey, and its pedigree. The Lineage of Shiraz and the people who have contributed over thousands of years make this moment a reality. The timeline spans 2,000 years, from the Romans to the French of the Northern Rhône and the hill of Hermitage, to the pioneering Australians, James Busby and the MacArthurs, to the migrant families of Christian Auricht and Charles Angas, to today's Lindner family.
We are delighted to bring you Langmeil Winery's 2017 Lineage Shiraz. A blend of two of Australia's ancestral vineyards transformed into liquid history, making a bottle of wine for the ages, one that Paul Lindner believes is a just reward for the generations who guided us to this point in time.
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