The Elderton vineyard was planted in 1904 by Samuel Elderton Tolley, was purchased by the Ashmead family in the late 1970s, and started producing labelled bottled estate wine from the 1982 harvest. The vineyard was almost destroyed in 1997 to make way for higher yielding vines, however the family made the decision to promote the vineyard to a higher destiny – thus the Ashmead. An unknown clone of Cabernet on it's own rootstock (most likely G9V3) planted in 1944, growing in deep alluvial silt over limestone, yielding one to two tonnes per hectare. Ashmead is the most elite expression Barossa Cabernet, aged for thirty months, racked thrice, mainly in a mix of new and old French oak puncheons.T

TASTING NOTES
Deep purple/ black in colour. A nose of rich ripe fruit, solid toasty oak and aromatic spice aromas. Virulent bouquets of mint and of dark olives, plums and cassis, roast smoky meats and menthol. Deliciously rich and concentrated, Elderton offers impeccable balance and plenty of mocha, blackberry and plum fruit which are all supported by firm and favourable tannins. You can have it today, but optimal ageing is five to twenty years. "Big intense, powerful fruit with heady vapours of plums and currants and smoky vanillan oak. This is as refined and sophisticated as Barossa cabernet can get, drink one today for it's fine figure and vivaciousness, and cellar the other for it's excellence and noblesse!" -Wine Mag.com