In 2013 a neighbour of Glug customer Alan Ramsey gifted him a bottle of Karrawirra Barossa Valley Claret 1973 which had lain in the family Canberra cellar since purchase well over 20 years ago. The Karrawirra wines of the Barossa Valley were created by the Kies family in the late 1960s. This brand was resurrected by the Glug in 2004 with the first vintage being released in 2008. Alan and another Glug supporter Paul Johnson invited me to join them a few years ago for lunch and the ceremonial opening of the bottle. Old bottles are pretty much a gamble, but the level of the Karrawirra Claret was good, so our hopes were high. The cork crumbled easily, and it took a delicate touch to extract the pieces bit by bit. This is what we experienced: ‘Pale red-tawny colour; fragile sweet bouquet, warm climate nuances with faint leather and old wood; unexpected liveliness on the palate with the last rays of sweet fruit giving enjoyment. The wine held together quite well for several hours. A remarkable experience.’
By the 1970s profound technical, even revolutionary changes in how red wines should be made in the warm Barossa climate were in practise at Penfolds and Orlando. Even so change takes time to disseminate across to small wineries. The tasting of this 1973 suggests they had not worked down to the small Keelyn winery, Lyndoch where the Karrawirra was made. The impression left was of a wine that started life as medium weight and lower alcohol than comes from the fully ripe grapes which Glug and most others prefer in the 2020’s. I wonder if it was made from Cabernet? The current range of Karrawirra Barossa Valley red varieties provide customers with deeper, fuller bodied reds that those of the 1970s.
