Eden Valley

Eden Valley Riesling is bone dry, intensely limey and steely, and ages into a distinctive toasty, kerosene-tinged maturity.

Its Shiraz is more peppery and structured than the Barossa floor below.

Eden Valley sits in the Barossa Ranges above the Barossa Valley floor, at 380–550 m, and the elevation makes it a different region despite sharing an administrative zone.

It is several degrees cooler, ripens two to three weeks later, and its soils are thin and rocky rather than deep and fertile. Rainfall is higher and frost is a real risk.

Riesling is what it is known for, alongside Clare Valley: bone dry, intensely limey, high in acidity, and famous for developing a kerosene or petrol note with a decade in bottle. That note comes from a compound called TDN, whose formation is favoured by sunlight exposure and warm ripening.

Its Shiraz is quite unlike the valley floor's — medium-bodied, peppery and floral rather than dense and chocolatey — and Henschke's Hill of Grace, from ungrafted vines planted in the 1860s, is among Australia's most celebrated wines.