Tait ‘The Ball Buster’ 2012
Color: Deep Black Purple. Nose: Intense aromas of blackcurrent, Stewed plums, Cherry, and chocolate. Palate: Full bodied berry palate with a sweet long lasting finish.
91 pts Stephen Tanzer’s IWC (JR)
($18) (mostly shiraz, with cabernet sauvignon and a bit of merlot): Brilliant ruby. Sexy red berry and lavender pastille aromas are complicated by vanilla and cola. Fleshy raspberry and boysenberry flavors show very good lift, building spiciness and suave florality. Gains sweetness and depth with air, finishing with sexy notes of floral pastilles and slow-building tannins. Quite elegant given its heft and depth.
90 pts Wine Spectator Magazine
Rich, focused and generous, with smoke- and herb-accented cherry and roasted meat flavors. Succulent finish. Shiraz, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Drink now through 2017. 25,000 cases made. –HS Aug 31, 2015
90 pts The Wine Advocate (LPB) #212 A blend of 78% Shiraz, 12% Merlot and 10% Cabernet Sauvignon, the deep garnet-purple colored 2012 The Ball Buster has a pronounced nose of creme de cassis, mocha and dried plums with underlying hints of yeast extract and licorice. Rich, expressive and well-balanced, this full-bodied wine is bursting with black fruit flavor and velvety textured goodness. It finishes with great persistence. Drink it now to 2017+.
90 pts James Suckling
This is a Australian red that shows the opulent fruit flavor yet remain fresh and clean. It’s full-bodied, savory and textured. But not overdone. Drink now.
The grapes that make up the Ball Buster blend are sourced from different vineyard locations throughout the Barossa. Vineyard sites are chosen to ensure that the resultant fruit is intense and that cropping levels do not exceed 3.5 tones an acre; typically these are clay soils on the fringes of the Barossa. Each vineyard site is visited twice a week during the maturing season to ensure that the fruit is maturing slowly and that water is only applied when necessary. Picking is only done when the grapes are physiologically ripe. The age of the vineyards that make up the 2012 Ball Buster Blend vary between 7 and 40 years.
All grapes are picked when physiologically ripe to obtain peak ripeness in terms of sugar and flavor. The grapes are de-stemmed into open fermenters, pH is adjusted and fermentation takes place over 7-10 days at a temperature of approx 24 degrees centigrade. Plunging and or pumping over takes place 3 times a day. The wine is then pressed using a Basket Press. Juice is then transferred to tank or Barrel to undergo Malo-lactic fermentation. Each batch is kept separate to determine on a year by year basis the quality of the fruit from that vineyard. All wine is racked and returned to barrel 2 to 3 times during the 12 moth period to ensure a clean wine that does not need any fining or filtration.