Cricket legend Ricky Ponting and Wine Maker extrodinare Ben Riggs have forged their skills to create a wine that celebrates both dedication and achievement. Definitely a dinner party conversation starter! Soft and silky in style, this wine shows generous red berry fruits with touches of mint and clove. Langhorne Creek is famous for wines of pure drinking enjoyment and this is a wine of great character and style.

Ben Glaetzer's new Langhorne Creek classic made its debut with the 2012 vintage. This densely purple wine stains the glass with rich colour. The powerful dark fruit is complemented by hints of pepper and spice. The structure of oak is evident on the palate, but finely poised to support the astonishing intensity of black fruit and velvety texture of this commanding wine. If you are looking for a great red to drink or age, this is the One.

This is the great Australia red blend of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon with a touch of Malbec. The wine displays plum, blackcurrant, chocolate and boysenberry spice, and a juicy palate with persistent flavour and smooth velvety tannins. Bleasdale is not only one of the oldest wineries in the Langhorne Creek region, but one of the oldest in Australia. Frank Potts, who founded Bleasdale in 1850, has a fascinating history. Born with sea legs, he joined the British Royal Navy at 9 years old and served on Lord Nelsons famous ship HMS Victory. He sailed around the world before landing in South Australia in 1836. He planted the first vines in 1858 and sold fruit to Thomas Hardy. He then expanded the vineyards in the 1860s. He was an innovator and a pioneer who played his role in establishing Australias wine industry. The Potts family still own Bleasdale and descendants Michael and Ben Potts handle the winemaking duties, along with Paul Hotker. They make wines from fruit grown on their 61 hectares of vineyards from varietals like Verdelho, Shiraz and Malbec in sparkling, table and fortified styles. Each parcel of fruit is carefully selected to produce a range of wines that can be enjoyed immediately, or cellared for that special occasion.

Ponting Wines is a collaboration between one of Australia’s most celebrated cricketers, Ricky Ponting and Ben Riggs, an award-winning Australian winemaker known for uncompromising, high quality wines. Masters of their craft, their partnership has been forged to celebrate their dedication and achievements. “Raising a glass with team mates at the close of play, when the game was done and the crowd was gone, they were the special moments.” - Ricky Ponting This is a wine that honours that tradition and is the perfect ‘finale’ for any get together. “Soft and silky in style, this wine shows generous red berry fruits with touches of mint and clove. Langhorne Creek is famous for wines of pure drinking enjoyment and this is a wine of great character and style.” - Ben Riggs. Food Matching: Fillet Steak.

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.

The intensity of the fruit and varietal characteristics of Langhorne Creek soft tannin Cabernets were integrated with fine oak to develop this wine.

The Langhorne Creek region is known to produce good Shiraz/ Cabernet Blends and our Quintessential has Cabernet and Shiraz blended together equally by our winemaker Peter Douglas. It is a perfect match and will age gracefully for many years if you can allow yourself to leave them in the cellar long enough.Alternatively enjoy it now amd keep a few for later. We have only produced 105 dozen of this wine and have numbered each bottle in honour of its true pedigree.