2018 Henschke Keyneton Euphonium Barossa Shiraz/Cabernet

Its Origins

Henschke have a long history in Australian wine, and their story is similar to many European families who have reached the very top of their field: building on the best aspects of tradition while integrating the finest modern thinking and methodology. Johann Christian Henschke was a Sliesian refugee who came to Australia in 1841 seeking religious freedom. In 1862 he planted the first vineyard on his property in Keyneton South Australia, in the now famous Eden Vale, with the first wine released six years later. Fourth generation Cyril Henschke laid the foundation for the company’s modern success by looking beyond the fortified styles of the day to develop their first ‘serious’ single-varietal and single-vineyard wines, in particular the now-legendary Shiraz wines ‘Hill of Grace’ and ‘Mount Edelstone’. Today the fifth generation are if anything stronger, with the team of winemaker Stephen Henschke and his viticulturalist wife Prue having established the label at the pinnacle of not only Australian but world winemaking. The exceptional skill and appropriate technology brought to bear in the winery, and organic and biodynamic principles in the vineyard, are far more than doing justice to the tradition they are part of...and the extremely old vines they have in their care. Some of these vines are 100 years old - and on their original rootstocks - while vines in the Hill of Grace vineyard are likewise on original rootstocks, though some date back as far as the 1860s.