Heartland Illicium Cabernet Shiraz Dolcetto 2021

Barossa Valley legend Ben Glaezer grew up in wine, his father Colin was winemaker at Seppelt, and his uncle is John Glaetzer, head winemaker at Wolf Blass for over 30 years. After graduating from Adelaide University’s Roseworthy campus, and a spell at Tyrrell’s, Ben went on to win a number of honours and titles as winemaker of Glaezer wines. The Heartland story began in the late 1990’s when Ben became excited about the outstanding quality of fruit being grown in some of South Australia’s lesser-known regions, in particular Langhorne Creek, where he explored thoroughly along with some winemaking friends. Today Heartland sources all of its fruit exclusively from Langhorne Creek and makes mainly red wines. Ben makes them 100km away at his state of the art Barossa Vintners winery in Tanunda. The Illicium name comes from Illicium Verum, the Latin name for Star Anise. This is a mix of Cabernet, single vineyard Shiraz and a little joyous, juicy Dolcetto. Together they have created a dense extremely fruity red layered with spice, cased in mellow oak.