TASTING AND DISCUSSING BAROSSA’S 2018 AND 2019 VINTAGES WITH TARRAWATTA’S CRAIG ISBEL

James asks Craig Isbel, the winemaker at Tarrawatta in the Barossa Valley, how the 2018 and 2019 vintages compare.Craig said '18 had classic, cool conditions in the Barossa, "and so we could pick and choose when we picked, so we had the opportunity to be nice and patient. It was a great year." There was more pressure on for the '19, he said. "We had some frost in September; we had some quite cool conditions through winter, but it was quite dry, and then we experienced some really hot, windy conditions through November ... and that knocked the flowering around, so quite low yields in 2019."As a result, the 2019s have "brighter, floral characters, quite a bit riper fruit, so probably more expressive and a little bit more impressive as young wines... I think the '18s have the structure and they've got that sort of darker kind of look to them; a little more subtle and a little more closed up  as young wines and then they'll continue to evolve and probably end up being the better wines down the track."