Enjoy the deep, concentrated flavour of Dandelion 'Lionheart of the Barossa' Shiraz, featuring intense aromatics of dark berries and chocolate, subtle notes of soy, lavender, laurel, pink peppercorns, rosemary, eucalyptus bark, and smoked paprika. Its plush fruit and berry flavours are balanced on the palate with sweeping tannins and zingy acidity for the perfect finish.

A good butcher’s best sausage grilled over vine trimmings and served with steamed cabbage and German mustard.

About the Producer

Dandelion Vineyards is the venture of self-titled ‘typist’ Zar Brooks and his winemaking wife Elena, with wines made from the Barossa and Eden Valleys, Fleurieu, the Adelaide Hills and McLaren Vale. Nick Stock, one of Australia’s leading journalists, has described Dandelion as follows: “Brooks has teamed up with his winemaking wife Elena, a woman whose talents are outweighed only by her tolerance, in an exciting new venture called Dandelion Vineyards. The approach is remarkably simple and sees Elena making wine from a suite of beautiful old vineyards across that blessed curve that runs from the Barossa, up through the Eden Valley and Adelaide Hills and down into McLaren Vale.”

Vineyard and Winery

Named after the Barossa’s lifelong champion of old vines, Carl Lindner, the grapes for this Shiraz come from Dandelion’s Kinkora vineyard on Seppeltsfield Road in Tanunda, the heart of the Barossa Valley. The vines here are over 100 years old, many planted on their original rootstock. Throughout the vineyards, the humble dandelion is encouraged to grow among the vines as it suppresses winter weeds and provides mulch in summer.

Whole bunches were hand harvested in the third week of March, gently crushed and naturally fermented in open fermenters for eight days. The cap was hand plunged twice a day before the fruit was carefully pressed off the skins using a basket press into a mix of new and previously filled French and American oak barriques to finish fermentation. After 18 months' maturation and racking in the same oak, the wine was bottled without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of the vines.