Eden Valley Archives - Young Gun of Wine

Callum Powell

From the tapestry of the Barossa’s vine-strewn landscape, Callum Powell is weaving an exciting new chapter with his Agricola label that is a homage to the pursuit of ‘a sense of site’. This journey, rooted in the soils of the famous Torbreck winery, where his formative years unfurled, has blossomed into a quest for a profound connection with the land. Powell’s odyssey took him from the nurturing embrace of the Barossa to the storied terrains of Hermitage at Domaine JL Chave, enriching his palette of winemaking hues. His wax sealed Barossa and Eden Valley wines, with hand illustrated vineyard maps on the back labels, deliver on the goal of perfumed, complex, naturally balanced interpretations of Barossa.

Caitlin Brown

In the Eden Valley sub-region of High Eden sits Mountadam Vineyards. With initial plantings established in 1972, the vineyard has been nurtured by the Brown Family since 2015, with Caitlin Brown at the helm as the winemaker. Here, across 147 hectares of vines, the focus is on crafting wines that truly express the High Eden terroir. The range of varietal wines Brown makes are quintessential to the region, where the intent is on purity of fruit and a transparency of site.

Belinda Hughes

Belinda Hughes only officially joined her husband, John Hughes, at the helm of Rieslingfreak from the 2021 vintage. In reality, she had been intimately involved in the operation for five years prior. The excellent 2021 vintage, though, was a good time to formalise her role making riesling in a dizzying array of styles – from dry to sweet to sparkling to fortified – across the Clare and Eden Valleys. Now with three vintages under her belt, and beautifully cool ones at that, Hughes and her husband are overseeing the building of a new cellar door in Tanunda, while the range of wines has expanded, including an overdue foray into the Clare subregion of Watervale.

2020 Eden Hall Reserve Riesling

A riot of citrus, apple and jasmine, the wine is marked by its powerful intensity allied with poise, and generous texture paired with laser-like acidity, the extremes working in perfect concord.

2021 Rieslingfreak No.4 Riesling

John Hughes’ mastery of the riesling grape has already been amply proven, but in the superb 2021 vintage that dial’s been turned up to new limits. This is an intense play of jasmine and lime, effusive but not overly exotic, with tension and effortless balance through a long finish underlining its pedigree.

2021 Edenflo ‘Lemon Krush’

With semillon taking the lead, the 2021 ‘Lemon Krush’ is an essay in citrus, from a lemon-scented fragrance to the refreshingly drying pucker of lemon barley water gifted by Wardlaw’s masterly hand with skin contact.

2020 Edenflo ‘Fresh Prince’

The ‘Fresh Prince’ marshals a quartet of red varieties with decent crossover on a Venn diagram but are rarely all seen together, offering a fragrantly floral and spicy nose, with earthy notes, red and dark fruits and a palate of chewy, grapey tannins and fresh zip.

Andrew Wardlaw

Edenflo is the culmination of Andrew Wardlaw’s extensive experience here and overseas, a label centered around celebrating the Eden Valley with wines that continue his fascination with native yeasts and minimal intervention that he’s been championing for two decades. His process has always been lo-fi, with basket pressing, no chilling or fining, and gravity employed over pumps, and he never does numbers in the lab. He was a pioneer, if you will, and his wines are very much still at the cutting edge, with unlikely assemblies of grapes, some skinsy, some not, as well as elegantly pitched takes on Eden Valley reds.

Callum Powell Agricola Wines