Clarendon Hills

Clarendon Hills. In 1990 Roman Bratasiuk founded Clarendon Hills winery in Clarendon 40 kilometres (25 mi) south of Adelaide, part of the McLaren Vale Wine Region in South Australia. Clarendon was selected as a base because of the significant number of old vineyards (50 to 90 years). The township of Clarendon was established in 1880 by European migrants, who brought with them pre-clonal, original French vine cuttings and propagated vineyards across the surrounding hilltops. Clarendon is home to hugely varied terrain with sandy, clay based soils in the lower elevated regions and contrasted with shattered shale and ironstone rich, quartz ridden soils in the highest areas. Grenache, Syrah Merlot, Mourvedre and Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards are sourced by Clarendon Hills within the Clarendon, Blewitt Springs and Kangarilla districts. Seeking to express the imprint a vineyard and its terroir stamps on varietal expression, Roman exclusively produces single vineyard wines. Today there are many single vineyard wines in Australia, but when Roman started in 1990, he was a virtual pioneer. In the early 1990s, Roman started becoming known for his Grenache, but today it is his impressive collection of ultra high quality wines spread across his 19 single vineyard cuvee portfolio. In Wine Advocate issue #173 it comments "Clarendon Hills is one of the worlds elite wine estates". Clarendon Hills is most highly regarded for its Syrah wine, named Astralis. In 1996 wine critic Robert Parker tasted the 1994 Astralis and wrote in issue 110 of his newsletter:

Two bottles of Astralis (1998 and 1999 vintages) with slightly different labels designs, but both featuring a night sky with the Southern Cross.

This is the hottest wine in Australian wine circles, as it came out ahead of two great vintages of Henschke and Penfolds’ Grange in a recent tasting. If readers can believe it, it is a bigger denser, more concentrated wine than the Grange

and in issue 108 (1996) he named Roman wine producer of the year. After this Astralis became a cult wine.Two vintages of Astralis (1996 and 1994) were recently included within the 'Greatest 1000 Wines of all time 1727-2006" as a result of 15 international MW's collaborating with Scandinavian publisher FINE. Clarendon Hills was awarded New World Winery of the Year in 2006 by Wine Enthusiast. To date, Astralis is either the highest or equivocally scored as the best Australian Shiraz/Syrah based wine every year according to US publications Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate.^[1]

See more wines from Clarendon Hills

• Lamb
• Chicken
• Pasta
• Venison
• Beef

• Black Currant
• Burnt Toast
• Spice
• Mocha
• Full Body
• Blueberry