Elderton: Over 40 years of Cabernet and Shiraz in the Barossa Valley

Elderton aerial view — Credit: Elderton

(Image credit: Elderton)

When Neil and Lorraine Ashmead acquired their new Barossa Valley home in 1980, the Nuriootpa homestead came with the surrounding 29ha of old vines for free. Thirteen years later, those old vines – specifically Elderton Cabernet Sauvignon 1992, which remains impressive to this day – bagged the prestigious 1993 Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy.

‘It put a million dollars on the top line straight off,’ says their son Cameron Ashmead. With his brother Allister Ashmead, he is co-managing director of Elderton, the Barossa brand founded by their parents in 1982.

These days, old Barossa vines have dizzy price tags. Take the Mengler Hill Vineyard in Eden Valley, which cost Elderton AUS$3.5m in 2023. However, as Cameron explains: ‘We see a very bright future for Shiraz and Grenache especially. We’re investing for the future.’ Describing it as ‘a climate hedge’, at 500m, Mengler Hill is not only elevated, it also receives 50% more rainfall than the family’s Barossa Valley floor vineyards.

Scroll down for tasting notes and scores of 11 current and library releases from Elderton

Having increased the family’s tally of prime Barossa vineyards to four, Cameron is also thrilled at the prospect of extending Elderton’s range with ‘high end’ Mengler Hill Shiraz, Grenache and Riesling.

Meanwhile, the latest vintages of Elderton’s GSM, Neil Ashmead GTS Shiraz and Barossa Shiraz (a superb buy) highlight a traditional advantage of multi-vineyard ownership, namely blending across sites for balance and greater nuance.

Looking beyond Nuriootpa (the lowest vineyard) has undoubtedly helped Elderton to hone a different style for its wines. As Cameron puts it, to make the wines that are ‘a bit more modern – lighter and fresher and more approachable on release, so you don’t have to cellar them for seven years’.

The early days

Winemaking had not been on the agenda when, following a stint in Saudi Arabia, Lorraine and Neil Ashmead moved into the rundown Nuriootpa homestead with their three young sons. Neil’s job selling tractors for Caterpillar and the couple’s attempts at bathtub wine hardly qualified them for the job.

It was Lorraine’s entrepreneurial father, Wellington Rice, who acquired the property in 1980. He was hoping to tempt his daughter and family back to Australia and revive the neglected vineyard, planted in 1894. It worked, but Rice’s grape-growing plans soon fell victim to a disastrous grape glut.

Allister Lorraine and Cameron Ashmead — Lorraine Ashmead, co-founder of Elderton with her late husband Neil, and their sons Allister (left) and Cameron at their Nuriootpa homestead in the Barossa Valley.

The government’s Vine Pull Scheme offered a way out, but Lorraine and Neil opted to make wine from their ancient vines instead. With help from noted Barossa winemakers Peter Lehmann and Jim Irvine, Elderton released its first wines in 1982.

Looking back, Cameron attributes their parents’ success to ‘equal parts naivety, amazing foresight and hard work’.

During that time, many grape growers were pulling out Cabernet Sauvignon because Shiraz was easier to farm. But Allister says that keeping this variety – more associated with cooler regions – gave Elderton ‘a leg up’. And that manifested in Elderton winning the prestigious Jimmy Watson Trophy.

Elderton: a commitment to Cabernet

Elderton still makes an Estate Cabernet today, but the collector’s favourite is the premium Ashmead Cabernet Sauvignon. ‘We call it the epiphany wine,’ says Allister. ‘People go from, “Are you kidding? A $100 Barossa Cabernet?” to “That’s pretty good!”’ The grapes come from deep-rooted vines, planted in 1944 in alluvial silt near the North Para River.

It’s made, in minute quantities, by Elderton’s head of viticulture and winemaking Julie Ashmead (Cameron’s wife) and winemaker Brock Harrison. ‘Ashmead is a unique site,’ says Julie. ‘It’s a precise wine, very niche, with amazing floral aromas.’

Elderton-Jimmy-Watson — Elderton won Australia’s prestigious Jimmy Watson Trophy for its 1992 Estate Cabernet Sauvignon.

Julie, a fifth-generation winemaker who has worked vintages in Bordeaux as well as at Barossa properties Two Hands and Turkey Flat, says that the Cabernet used for Ode to Lorraine ($50), from younger vines on more clay, ‘is more typical of the Barossa – much greener, with bay leaf notes’.

Elderton is a true family-run business, with Allister’s wife Rebecca the winery’s export manager who also looks after bottlings. The two couples have three children each, which bodes well for the third generation of Ashmead grower/winemakers in the Barossa.

Allister says the family has an ongoing commitment to Cabernet Sauvignon, thanks to his parents tenacity and early success with the variety, and Elderton has since has planted heritage cuttings from Ashmead as well as new Cabernet clones.

Expressive Barossa Shiraz

For all their love of Cabernet, however, it is Shiraz that garners the most attention in the Barossa. The premium counterpart to Elderton’s Ashmead Cabernet is the Command Shiraz. First made in 1984 exclusively from 1894-planted blocks, it was at the vanguard of bold Barossa old-vine Shiraz lavished with new American oak.

But times have changed, says Allister, and now the goal is to ‘make wines which are much more expressive of us and our place’. Elderton introduced French oak alongside the American in 1996, reduced fermentation temperatures in 2010 and, since 2013, Command has spent its final year in seasoned (as opposed to new) oak barrels.

Old Shiraz vines in Elderton's Nuriootpa vineyard — The 1894-planted vines in Elderton’s Nuriootpa vineyard that go into its Command Shiraz.

Elderton recently purchased small concrete tulip fermenters to allow for smaller batches than in the traditional nine-tonne concrete fermenters. Advantageously the tulips can be closed, allowing for pre-soaks and extended macerations. Julie believes ‘it will help the vineyard to express itself as purely as it can’.

The Ashmead family started out making single-estate wines, then cast the net wider to buy fruit from select growers for its entry-level E-Series range. Having acquired Barossa-designate vineyards in Eden Valley to the east (2007) and Greenock to the west (2010) to join the original Nuriootpa vines, the Ashmeads have since reined in production.

‘It’s about being in control of quality and consistency,’ says Allister. The Estate Family Vineyards range blends fruit from all three sites ‘to produce a great bottle of wine for $30’. As prices climb, individual site nuances come into sharper focus – sharp contrast even – peaking with Elderton’s Elite Single Vineyard wines. These include the Ashmead Cabernet ($100), Command Shiraz ($125) and the Helbig 1915 Shiraz ($350) from Greenock’s oldest vines.

Grand Tourer and Helbig 1915

Julie says the three vineyards have distinct tannin structures. From Nuriootpa they are ‘deep, silky, long and layered’; from Greenock they are ‘punchier and upfront’; while wines from the cooler, rockier and younger Eden Valley site (Craneford) have ‘slatey, edgy tannins’.

In 2018, the family explored the interplay of Nuriootpa and Greenock Shiraz for the Neil Ashmead Grand Tourer ($50). The wine honours their travelling salesman father, who took his own life in 1997. It’s a more vibrant, contemporary style than the Command Shiraz, thanks to Greenock’s dynamic tannin structure and earlier-ripening Shiraz clone. It also is no longer aged in 100% new oak.

Greenock vineyard - Elderton — Elderton’s Greenock vineyard: younger Shiraz vines go into the Grand Tourer and the oldest create the Helbig 1915.

While the vines used for the Grand Tourer Shiraz (GTS) were planted in 1980, the oldest block in the Greenock vineyard was planted by the Helbig family in 1915 – source of Elderton’s so-named blockbuster Shiraz.

‘Promoting this style may not be seen as a good thing in many circles,’ concedes Allister, ‘but it was never about making a “Command Plus”. It’s about what the vineyard has done historically and seeing where we go with it. Like GTS, the style of Helbig 1915 will evolve over a decade before we get to understand it.’

The maiden 2013 release of Helbig (then called Fifteen) was truly ‘hell big’, says Cameron: ‘it was the biggest wine we’d made in the last 15 or 20 years!’ The 2013 vintage was an exceptionally early and dry year, whereas the 2018 release is still big, but relatively approachable with less density and more juice.

Old-school Barossa

Visitors to Elderton’s cellar door can be assured of a big, warm Barossa welcome as well as wines. Renovated a cost of more than AU$1 million, the old Nuriootpa homestead and gardens won a Great Wine Capitals Best of Tourism Award in 2019.

Cameron says being on hand to greet visitors and do tastings at the cellar door, as well as travelling to host dinners with avid collectors, is ‘just old-school Barossa hospitality’. But it also helps people connect with the family and their story: ‘It makes people believe, because it is real.’

Allister admits: ‘We were terrified when the pandemic broke, but then we had a deluge of phone calls and orders. People said “we’re sticking with you”. It makes you feel pretty amazing!’

Elderton: the facts

Founded 1982 by Neil and Lorraine Ashmead

Owners/managing directors Cameron and Allister Ashmead, since 2003

Winemaking team Julie Ashmead and Brock Harrison

Annual production 30,000 cases of 12

Estate vineyards Nuriootpa (27ha), Greenock (25ha), Craneford (15ha)

Key wines Command Shiraz, Ashmead Cabernet, Helbig 1915, Ode to Lorraine, Estate Cabernet, Estate Shiraz

Elderton: Over 40 years of Cabernet and Shiraz in the Barossa Valley