Red Queen of the Eden Valley Shiraz

Our Winemaker Elena Brooks crowned Colin Kroehn's Eden Valley Shiraz vineyard as our Red Queen. Its age, altitude, aspect and slopes are the key. Colin tended his beloved Shiraz vines for most of his life's 90 years and our Red Queen is made entirely of his vineyard. Planted in 1912, on a south facing slope of limestone bed rock covered with loamy sands absolutely laden with quartzite, the vineyard survives to this day. The rocky outcrops of quartz are spectacularly coloured with ironstone streaks, and sit over a c.1600 million year old Barossa Complex basement of gneiss and schist. Elena's 15th vintage of Red Queen was hand harvested and sorted on April 19th, partially crushed gently to ferment ambiently and openly for 10 days, thrice plunged by hand, before basket pressing into half new and half one year old French Oak Barriques to finish fermentation. After two and a half years maturation and a racking in the same oak, we bottled this vintage of Red Queen without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of the vineyard. Dandelion Vineyard’s Red Queen will reward cellaring and decanting. Thank you Mr. Kroehn for this legacy. Awards: • The Real Review, Aaron Brasher – 96 Points, Gold, #2 of 18 2022 Shiraz from Eden Valley