  A hundred summers, a hundred winters "The 100 Year Old Paras have no parallel anywhere else in the world and the conjunction of 100 years of devoted stewardship (think former cellarmaster James Godfrey) and have had an outcome that can never, ever, be duplicated." We are immensely proud to work with Seppeltsfield as their exclusive UK partner – it is such an honour to be able to share these magnificent and historical wines with you… Seppeltsfield has long been internationally renowned for its treasure trove of fortifieds. Highlighted by the Centennial Collection – the world’s only unbroken lineage of single vintage Tawny dating back to 1878, spanning 148 consecutive vintages. The Centennial Cellar was built in 1878 by Oscar ‘Benno’ Seppelt. In a gesture both unique and inspirational, Benno selected a puncheon of his finest wine and gave instructions that it was not to be bottled for 100 years. The Centennial Cellar is a living museum of Australian winemaking history and undoubtedly is the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the Seppeltsfield Estate. We are beyond thrilled to unveil the 1925 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny, the 48th consecutive release from the Centennial Cellar. The 1925 Seppeltsfield 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny is a taste of the past through the prism of the present. Through a 100-years of maturation, evaporation, temperature oscillations and changes in atmospheric pressure, the wine has evolved and transmogrified into a rare elixir. By virtue of history it straddles modernity, the world in conflagration, advances in technology and profound changes to Australian life. The transcendent 1925, 100-Year-Old Para Vintage Tawny is a living wonder of the wine world and a rare ethereal experience for those who have the luck to taste it. In the late 1970s, Para Tawny stocks were increased to four puncheons for each vintage. Since Warren Randal took over as proprietor of Seppeltsfield in 2009, eight puncheons of tawny from each vintage are reserved. However, the 1925 vintage comprised only a single puncheon, and about 150 litres of this wine remains, due to around 3% volume being lost each year to evaporation. Seppeltsfield chief winemaker, Fiona Donald, examines many of these historic wines during annual inventories to check their condition. She often decants them into smaller 300-litre hogshead casks to help preserve their freshness. It was during this process (circa 24-months ago) that she was struck by the quality and arresting personality of the 1925 vintage. "It’s a wow wine," she said. "When I first started working with Para Vintage Tawny 16 years ago, I assumed that all wines of such profound age would look the same – and this is completely incorrect. The personality of each wine is framed by each different vintage, which is very accurately captured in this incredible fortified time capsule."  1925 100 Year Old Para Vintage Tawny Each bottle is hand-filled to order… The scarcity of Para Vintage Tawny amplifies the value of the treasure contained within each 100ml glass flask, which looks more like an exotic perfume vessel than a wine bottle. Each flask is hand-filled to order, then numbered and authenticated for collectors, bearing the signatures of Seppeltsfield proprietor and MD Randall and friend of the winery Bill Seppelt, the great-great-grandson of winery founders Joseph and Johanna Seppelt. The wine is packaged in a latched black wooden box that’s lined with black velvet and has information printed inside the lid that includes its bottling date. Its specific bottle number is attached to a neck tag on the bottle. In previous years, 375ml bottles were available, but according to Seppeltsfield chief winemaker Fiona Donald, this has now stopped due to the scarcity of remaining stocks in Seppeltsfield’s Centenary Cellar. "Our intention is to ensure our historic Para Centennial Collection will remain relevant to fine wine collectors of the future," she said. Critical acclaim… "How can I begin to score a wine this good?" said Nick Ryan (one of Australia’s most respected wine voices) Nick, "As a wine writer, I work hard to give the most accurate and objective scores I can. Then along comes a wine which is simply one of the most remarkable liquids you’ll ever put in your mouth." Points - All of them! “It’s the physicality of the wine you notice first. It’s as dark as sump oil at its core, easing out to a rich olive green at its rims. And then you attempt to swirl it. There are continents that move more rapidly than these old tawnies flow from the glass. They grip the surface of a glass like a potter’s glaze and no wine on Earth has more of its production sucked off an index finger than one of these. Get your nose near the glass and you topple through time. Walnuts soaked in brandy, star anise and cloves, cassia bark and panforte, coffee grounds and dried mandarin peel. The lingering scent of waxy oilskin. It doesn’t so much hit the palate as detonate upon it, pushing complex flavour to untouched corners and staying around longer than an adult child saving for a house deposit. One of the wine world’s greatest experiences.” 100 Points “In 1925, New York overtook London to become the largest city in the world, Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler's influence was rising, F. Scott Fitzgerald released The Great Gatsby, the Jazz Age was in full swing, and this was tucked away in barrel. That never ceases to blow my mind. It's a singularity of aroma and flavour. Dried fruits in an aqueous solution, candied nuts, mahogany, molasses, marzipan, fancy cigar lounge, espresso liqueur, candied figs and prunes, wood spice and citrus rind. It's in constant movement; light filters in and out, highlighting certain characters, casting shadow on others, in an ever-moving state of change. It's kinetic and endlessly complex and there ain't nothing else like it in the world. It really is a national treasure. Drink 2025-2055.” 100 Points “Deep colour. Intense lifted ground coffee, praline, panforte aromas with smoky, liquorice, aniseed, cloves notes. Generously concentrated, dense and richly flavoured with fresh espresso, dark chocolate, orange rind, sandalwood cloves notes, fine supple textures, superb mid-palate volume/ viscosity and a persistent pure aniseed cut. Finishes smoky and long with apricot, panforte notes. A wonderful expression of Australian wine history and ambition. A living curio to share.” 20/20 Points “It’s always fun looking back through the archives to discover what happened one hundred years ago. My favourite 1925 fact was that John Logie Baird successfully transmitted the first television pictures with a greyscale image in London. Less tasteful but no less interesting, Adolf Hitler published his book Mein Kampf. These two occurrences certainly make the intervening century feel like a long time ago. And so, tasting a wine with this age already under its belt and, on this tasting another century to go with apparent ease, makes it both humbling and monumental in equal measure. Tiny bottles of this elixir are hand-filled and dressed to satiate the curiosity of the world’s most ardent collectors. I usually write tasting notes about wines, but in this instance a mere jumble of words including perfumes and flavours, no matter how grand and improbable would not scratch the surface of this wine’s complexity and greatness. So, I have two images for you to consider. They appeared, unushered, into my mind as I tasted this wine and I would usually pick one, but I like both, so here they are. Drinking 1925 Seppeltsfield Para Vintage Tawny is akin to J. R. R. Tolkien’s entire cannon of Hobbit and Lord of the Rings masterpieces in just one flavour. It also tastes like RMS Titanic has collided into my palate, instead of an iceberg, and become wedged. I am certain this stupendous wine will outlive us all, and the planet, too, so do all you can to taste a sip. It feels life changing. Well, it certainly does to me.” Pricing $1,800.00 (circa £880.00 under bond) is the price per bottle. Seppeltsfield have been beyond generous by providing Vinorium customers with a very, very special offering. This price is not available to any of our trade customers as protecting this museum of a wine is paramount. £541.50 Under Bond per 100ml bottle This offer closes 9:00am Monday 15 September Delivery: With all the will in the world – we hope to receive delivery of these precious bottles prior to Christmas however, timing is super-tight. We will keep you informed every step of the way. Please prepare yourself for a January delivery. Winemaking: The very finest parcels of Grenache and Shiraz are selected each year from the Seppeltsfield Estate vineyards and reserved for the making of the 100 Year Old Para Vintage Tawny. The single vintage Tawny is fortified with Brandy spirit and aged in old oak barrels in the renowned Centennial Cellar, then this is progressively transferred into smaller barrels as it continues to evaporate and build in concentration. An estimated 3% is lost each year to the ‘angel’s share’, with the wine continually concentrating in flavour, aroma and viscosity during its maturation in barrel.  How can I begin to score a wine this good? By Nick Ryan, published in The Weekend Australian Until I took over this column, I’d never scored a wine in print. I may even have once written the line, “Trying to attach numbers to a wine is like trying to nail a fart to the wall.” But I’m not unaccustomed to the curious practice of trying to assign numeric precision to slippery subjectivity. I do it when I’m doing my own tastings; it’s useful shorthand to extract my favourites from a dense sprawl of scribbled tasting notes. I’ve done plenty of it over more than two decades judging wine shows around the world, more than enough of them to know it can be an inexact science. Like the time at a wine show in Italy when a young lady from Moscow sat down to share her scores with fellow judges after assessing the first class of wine. She’d given them all a perfect 100 points. “I’ve never tried wine before,” she announced enthusiastically. “I like it very much.” This column has a long tradition of providing guidance by numbers. My predecessor, James Halliday, had pretty much perfected it and I was more than willing to carry on in that vein. I work hard at trying to give the most accurate, insightful and objective score I can. Then along comes a wine that makes the whole thing seem rather pointless. Literally. I knew this was coming. There has been a 100 Year Old Tawny emerge from Seppeltsfield every year since 1978 and I’ve been lucky enough to taste most of them. So the recently released 1925 doesn’t exactly come as a shock. There is simply nothing else quite like this wine, other than those that came before it. How do you accurately put a number on a wine without peers? Attempting to put points on a wine that fumed through a hundred summers and contracted through as many winters seems faintly ridiculous. Just a point for every year of its existence or give it none at all. Nothing changes the fact that this is simply one of the most remarkable liquids you’ll ever put in your mouth. And that’s the whole point. It’s the physicality of the wine you notice first. It’s as dark as sump oil at its core, easing out to a rich olive green at its rims. And then you attempt to swirl it. There are continents that move more rapidly than these old tawnies flow from the glass. They grip the surface of a glass like a potter’s glaze and no wine on Earth has more of its production sucked off an index finger than one of these. Get your nose near the glass and you topple through time. Walnuts soaked in brandy, star anise and cloves, cassia bark and panforte, coffee grounds and dried mandarin peel. The lingering scent of waxy oilskin. It doesn’t so much hit the palate as detonate upon it, pushing complex flavour to untouched corners and staying around longer than an adult child saving for a house deposit. One of the wine world’s greatest experiences. 23.1% alcohol. Points: All of them.   The heart and soul of the Seppeltsfield fortified range is the Para Tawny Collection. Para has been synonymous with luxurious fortified wine for over a century, with the iconic insignia being the name of the river that meanders through the Barossa landscape. Seppeltsfield releases two single vintage tawny wines each year: a 100 Year Old and a 21 Year Old Tawny. The 100 Year Old Single Vintage Tawny is known as the jewel in the crown, and the 21 Year Old Single Vintage Tawny represents its respective vintage, in the context of the Seppeltsfield house style. We are excited to unveil not one, but five vintages from their 21-Year-Old Para Tawny collection – all distinctive and all very special. 2004, 2003, 2001, 2000 & 1999 Available by the bottle (750ml) and offered duty paid only. Make contact if you would like to purchase by-the-case and under bond. This offer closes 9:00am Monday 15 September Delivery: With all the will in the world – we hope to receive delivery of these precious bottles prior to Christmas however, timing is super-tight. We will keep you informed every step of the way. Please prepare yourself for a January delivery. 2004 "It's fresh as a daisy, beautifully balanced and so long, with a sleekness and poised sweetness as it slowly retreats... Tremendous stuff."  2004 Seppeltsfield Single Vintage Old Para Tawny 97 Points - Dave Brookes, Halliday.com "A Para tawny from the 2004 vintage. I can smell this all day. It's constantly moving, like the shadow of clouds moving across a hillside, a play on light and shade, tension and release. Candied citrus fruits, grilled figs sprinkled with brown sugar, fresh dates, rancio, polished leather, mahogany, redcurrant paste, salted caramel, espresso, brandy snaps and toffee apple. It's fresh as a daisy, beautifully balanced and so long, with a sleekness and poised sweetness as it slowly retreats, condensing slowly into its end point. Time for another sip. Tremendous stuff." Release price @ $110.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering £45.00 per bottle 2003 "This wine must be in the running for the greatest value fortified wine of the moment... This is certainly one of the greatest Paras I have tasted."  2003 Seppeltsfield Single Vintage Old Para Tawny 19.5 / 20 Points - Matthew Jukes “I was fortunate to taste another Para Tawny, this time a rare 100% Shiraz version of the famous ‘21 Years’ release. I have been a fan of this wine with it appearing in my 100 Best Australian Wines initiative in past editions. I was keen to include it in the 2025 Report but there is no stock currently in the UK. The reason for me mentioning this wine today is that this 2003 vintage is utterly sublime. It shows sensational concentration, complexity and freshness and the layers of fruit and spice appear never-ending. With regard to value for money, this wine must be in the running for the greatest value fortified wine of the moment, and I include all Ports, Maderias and Sherries in this bold statement. This is certainly one of the greatest Paras I have tasted, and I have been lucky to visit the estate and taste a huge number.” 98 Points - Dave Brookes, Halliday.com "Single-vintage tawny from the 2003 vintage, shiraz fortified with brandy spirit and laid down for oxidative aging in old hogsheads. I can sit down and sniff this all day. It constantly shifts, like watching the light and clouds move from a mountain viewpoint. Caramalised dried citrus fruits and rind, rancio, espresso, candied hazelnuts, mahogany, grilled figs sprinkled with brown sugar, praline, layered wood spice, toffee apple, salted caramel, pipe tobacco, brandy snaps and leather. Fresh, viscous and unctuously sweet it unfurls across the palate in slow motion, endlessly complex and rumbles off just as slowly, spice, died fruit and woody tones in its wake." Release price @ $120.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering @ £48.50 per bottle 2001 "Unctuous, with head-spinning complexity and length of finish, with a seam of freshness that drives the flavours across the tongue and off into the distance."  2001 Seppeltsfield Single Vintage Old Para Tawny 97 Points - Dave Brookes, Halliday.com "A single-vintage Para Tawny from the great estate of Seppeltsfield. with 21 years under its belt. Medium tawny in the glass with amber flashes and notes of roasting nuts, candied citrus rinds, burnt toffee, butterscotch, brandy snaps, rancio and Christmas cake, with layers and layers of spice below. Unctuous, with head-spinning complexity and length of finish, with a seam of freshness that drives the flavours across the tongue and off into the distance." Release price @ $140.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering @ £52.50 per bottle 2000 "What truly sets off the millennium vintage is line and length that hover unwavering for more than 60 seconds. Absolutely splendid."  2000 Seppeltsfield Single Vintage Old Para Tawny 97 Points - Tyson Stelzer, Halliday.com "Grenache/shiraz/mourvèdre; matured 21 years in old oak hogsheads; fortified with brandy spirit. The legendary fortified outfit of Seppeltsfield achieves epic levels of complexity even in single-vintage blends. All the profound power, detail and impeccable balance we've come to expect, but what truly sets off the millennium vintage is line and length that hover unwavering for more than 60 seconds. Absolutely splendid." Release price @ $150.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering @ £55.00 per bottle 1999 "If this '99 wine were to remain in barrel for another 80 years it would bear resemblance to the 100 Year Old."  1999 Seppeltsfield Single Vintage Old Para Tawny 97 Points - James Halliday "There is no other fortified winemaker in the world able to match the range and sheer quality of the Seppeltsfield portfolio laid down in 1874 (and nourished each year thereafter), headed by the sublime 100 Year Old Para Vintage Tawny. If this '99 wine were to remain in barrel for another 80 years it would bear resemblance to the 100 Year Old. This perfumed wine has wonderful texture and structure, a mesmerising array of perfumed shortbread, Christmas cake, raisins, butterscotch, intensely rich and sweet until the edge of rancio simultaneously makes it even more complex, yet cleanses the finish.” Release price @ $160.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering @ £58.50 per bottle RARE  Para Rare Tawny Para has been synonymous with luxurious fortified wine for over a century, with the iconic insignia being the name of the river that meanders through the Barossa landscape. The Seppeltsfield Para Rare Tawny has a minimum average of 15 years blended age, and therefore falls into the Australian Fortified Classification category of Rare which is a mature style exhibiting complex aromatic, and remarkable palate length. Para Rare Tawny is made through careful blending of individual vintage parcels to achieve a minimum average of 15 years blended age. This style is distinguished by two key elements: selected aged Tawny material known for its richness and complexity, balanced with the addition of Rich Rare Apera through careful blending. Matured in seasoned old oak hogsheads results in a sophisticated Para Rare Tawny with aromatic spices and an impressive palate length. Release price @ $80.00 per 750ml bottle Vinorium special offering @ £35.00 per bottle  Making room for the new harvest oil which we will be shipping during December. Remaining bottles only £10.00 per bottle "Deliciously fruity, deeply intense, juxtaposed by refreshing bitterness (moderately so) with a super-long peppery finish." |
