The Factor, Torbreck 2018

A pristine nose of ripe and intense blackberries, blueberries and redcurrants, as well as some sanguine, rust-like notes. This is an excellent edition of The Factor. I like the power and focus this wine delivers and, in 2018, it is a wine of great length and presence. Abundant ripe blackberries bathe the palate. Try from 2025.

Very deep, dark red/purple colour, with a bouquet that shouts north-western Barossa: graphite, ironstone, fresh-turned earth, savoury and complex. The wine is very full-bodied, and strongly built: the carpentry is impressive (that's structure, not oak). Superbly rich, fleshy and sustained through a very long palate and follow-through. It shapes up like a whopper but the tannins are supple and fine, smooth and not at all forbidding as we might have anticipated. Excellent. (30% new French oak. Northern & Western Barossa grapes) Drink 2021–2043