Callum Powell has learnt from the best when it comes to Syrah. He practically grew up in the cellars at Torbreck, the Barossa winery his father co-founded, watching it grow from the modest start up in a small shed to the international power house of today. He spent a year at Jean-Louis Chave in the Northern Rhone, one of THE top producers of Hermitage and St Joseph, learning more about his craft. His recent project with his father named Powell & Son sought out the best vineyards in Barossa and Eden and experimented with natural winemaking and indigenous yeasts, and gained him much international attention.
We're talking about a chap who certainly knows his stuff. And it's all thanks to fellow Barossa enigma, Fraser McKinley of Sami-Odi who tipped us off.....
Callum now brings his knowledge and natural instinct to his own wines. Sourcing fruit from his family's vineyards as well as the famous Hoffmann sites, Callum is quickly stepping out of his father’s shadow and making a name for himself.
His time in Hermitage and the many hours working the perilously steep slopes of the vineyards continues to influence him today. His wines are both named after the towns from which the fruit is sourced, recalling the site specific way of naming wines in Hermitage. And he even likens his different wines to the characteristics produced from the different lieux-dits of Chave.
Producing wines with a very light hand, with only minimal SO2 added a atr bottling, Callum aims to create lithe wines that are pure, unadulterated, and without the heavy oak influence that the region is known for, with a true traceability of place.