Your 2023 RedHeads 1888 Shiraz update

February is the usual harvest time for Australia, yet with all the fine weather and heat this season, vintage was very early – it started at the end of January. A first for RedHeads. The 1888 grapes took a bit longer – the last week of February – and due to the heat and drought, the 2025 vintage will be deliciously small and powerful.

When we talked to Darren, the winemaker, in November, he was feeling well stoked about the vintage. We give you the lowdown below.

First off… winemaker talk

As you’ll discover in the latest Vineyard Partner magazine, out in April, RedHeads lost Alex Trescowthick in autumn last year. He has decided to spend more time focusing on his Adelaide vineyard which, you may remember, he planted during covid … that and looking after his three small children as his wife has gone back to work. Good luck Alex, on both counts!

So, now they are a very efficient team of three at RedHeads, with Darren Harvey heading up the winemaking. Darren has been at the winery for the last seven years, making the wines, with supervision from and collaboration at blending time with Alex. So the wine is in very good hands and Darren certainly knows his stuff.

Adelaide-born Darren started out in hospitality – at a number of Europe’s smartest hotels. He had to acquaint himself with some of the finest wines and spirits, so he could advise clients on what best to drink with their menus. This certainly gave Darren a taste for the good stuff, so when he decided to change his career, he chose winemaking. He did a four-year degree course in viticulture and winemaking. During his degree, he gained experience at Nepenthe estate, where he first met Alex, again crossing paths with him when he did a stretch at Pernod Ricard wineries. On finishing his studies in 2016, Darren joined Alex at RedHeads.

Seven years later, Darren is heading up the team. He’s very proud of RedHeads’ reputation for small-batch wines as well as their green credentials – the first winery to go off-grid, with solar panels (two roofs worth now) and lithium batteries, plus their award-winning water efficiencies.

Darren also now works closely with all the growers, who are very much part of the RedHeads team. They have a great relationship with each one. So good in fact, they never bother with contracts, just a chat on the phone or in person and a verbal agreement.

Quantities in 2025 will certainly be small. The Barossa, Clare and Eden Valleys were all severely hit by spring frost as temperatures dropped as low as minus 4 late last year (their spring). The 1888 vineyard was fine – it’s fairly flat, so the cold air rarely gets trapped. However, some growers lost up to 20%. Deb Poole lost all the potential fruit at their old vineyard.

With that frost, plus drought and heat, no wonder yields are well down, but quality should be exceptional.

Meanwhile, RedHeads’ wines have been clocking up plenty of awards. In October 2024, they had a visit from Ryan Montgomery, Australia editor for JamesSuckling.com. Five wines gained marks over 90 – new wine Esule Chardonnay 2022, the Grüner Veltliner 2022, Dogs of the Barossa 2020, King of the Barossa Shiraz 2022 and the Touriga 2022. Great stuff.

In addition, they’ve won eight Golds in recent competitions and the trophy for Best New World Red Wine for King of Barossa Shiraz 2022. Well done team.

They also had a visit from Tony Laithwaite in December – he hadn’t been able to get out since before covid struck. Tony was impressed with the changes and the new cellar space, with lab.

We still very much do ‘wine excitement’ at RedHeads today (see the Esule Chardonnay mentioned above, the wonderful annual release of 1888, Fenrir and the rest), but we’ve decided to revisit our core principle and add even more buzz.

So, orchestrated by a former ‘RedHeader’, Steve Grimley, we are inviting a few very talented pals to come along to the winery to be guest winemakers and create a one-off, much pampered wine. You won’t see the fruit of the results for a little while. It’ll take a bit of planning and a vintage, but there will be, without doubt, some exciting results.

Your next RedHeads 1888 Barossa Shiraz – the 2023:

The 2023 vintage of your RedHeads 1888 Shiraz will have a fresher edge to it, certainly than the hotter, drier 2025 vintage. It was one of the latest harvests – they were still picking in the first week of May!

All together it was a trickier year, with more than normal rainfall and a little disease pressure. Having the 1888 vineyard outside the cellar door was certainly a bonus for keeping an eye out for any mildew.

Winemaking

As always, nearly all the grapes for the 1888 come from RedHeads own special vineyard, with a small portion, just 5%, from Debs and Matt Poole’s Light Pass Vineyard. Vines from their special block are 90 years old and are of phenomenal quality, so lend a little extra boost of power and flavour to the 1888. Quality is truly amazing.

Small-batch winemaking is essential for 1888, with the cap of skins plunged down into the liquid manually as each vat ferments. It’s hard work – builds muscle. After a long, slow fermentation, the wine is racked off and each batch put into barrel.

At the launch of the 1888, they used a mixture of coopers, toasts and wood for the barrels, but now it’s all French oak with the barrels made by the local cooper, Andrew Stiller. All water-bent too, to lend a gentle, more subtle oak flavour to the wine.

The 1888 stays in barrel for over a year, then, in May each year, the final blend is put together and the wine bottled. You don’t get your hands on those for another 8 months or so, as the wine rests in bottle, before being shipped.

Tasting note on 1888 2023 from Darren:

Despite a longer hangtime on the vine for the grapes, this vintage of 1888 is brighter in colour, with powerful lifted aromas of cherry, roasted plum and blackberry. It’s a really well-structured wine with tight freshness and firm tannins supporting the powerful black fruit, layers of oak spice and its dark chocolatey finish. Textured and plush with well-integrated oak notes, it’s rich and long.

Let your bottles settle a few weeks, then perhaps try one. But remember, the wine is still young and will go on improving quite a few years yet. Always best to open the bottle early and decant, so the wine has time to open out.