Yalumba celebrated its 175th anniversary in 2024, confirming its status as Australia’s oldest family-owned winery. As part of the celebrations, the winery launched a special Museum Release of selected older bottles.
Fortunately, this is now an annual event and the second collection of Yalumba Museum Release wines will take place on 1 May 2025.
It features limited amounts of seven back-vintage wines. They include The Signature, The Octavius Shiraz and super-premium blend The Caley.
Each has more than a decade of ageing in the Yalumba museum cellars.
Scroll down for notes and scores of the latest Yalumba Museum Release
The initial Yalumba Museum Release in May 2024 was an immediate success, with all global allocations selling swiftly.
It vindicated the decision of Jessica Hill-Smith, Yalumba’s general manager of public relations, communications and business affairs, to build this programme when she returned to the family company in 2019, after years working in the UK and Sydney.
A new approach to old wines
As the sixth generation of the Hill-Smith Family to be involved at the core of Yalumba decision-making, she accurately read the desire of restaurateurs to list older vintages of elite Australian red wines.
Though she noted they’re not prepared to invest the expense of cellaring these wines on their own premises.
The solution, as she saw it, was for Yalumba to do the work on their behalf. To that end the company utilised the museum cellar beneath its winery at Angaston in the Barossa Valley, which has housed the Hill-Smith Family’s expansive wine collection for more than 100 years.
The Yalumba winemakers were encouraged to identify wines from superior vintages that would be ideal for long-term cellaring. The company then reserved significant qualities of these vintages for later release.
Jessica Hill-Smith and her father Robert Hill-Smith
The second Museum Release
Today, wine lovers can take advantage of these perceptive decisions. This year’s Museum Release includes 2010 and 2015 vintages of The Menzies Cabernet Sauvignon from Yalumba’s Coonawarra Vineyard; The Signature blend of Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz; and The Octavius old-vine Shiraz from the Barossa.
The lineup also features 2013 and 2015 vintages of The Caley, a blend of elite Coonawarra Cabernet and Barossa Shiraz parcels, as well as 2015 Tri-Centenary Grenache, crafted from Barossa bush vines planted in 1889.
The 2015 vintage, in particular, is showing exceptional quality. According to Louisa Rose – former chief winemaker at Yalumba and now global ambassador and head of sustainability – these aged wines demonstrate:
‘The pedigree of great ancient vineyards, and the skill in getting the fruit off the vines at exactly the right time.’
The Museum Release is now timed to complement the annual release of Yalumba’s suite of elite premium wines. It serves as a clever advertisement to suggest the promise these new vintages hold if they are cellared.
‘Cellaring fine wine is an art – and this is something Yalumba is determined to advocate and promote,’ says Rose.
History and tradition
It’s an ethos that rings true for Yalumba. The Hill-Smith family has a particular passion for history and tradition, being a steadfast champion of preserving and caring for ancient vines.
The family’s key Barossa Shiraz vineyards include Clifton Estate, planted in 1854 and Shorts Vineyard planted in 1900. Also in the Barossa is the Tri-Centenary Vineyard, planted with Grenache in 1889.
Yalumba also drafted a charter to accurately classify different ages of old vines. It defines four categories: Old (35-plus years), Survivors (70-plus years), Centenarians (100-plus years) and Ancestors (125-plus years).
In the Yalumba playbook, such attention to detail makes a significant difference.
This is where the Museum Release makes clear sense, offering comparisons of how premium wines age with grace.
Yalumba’s Tri-Centenary Grenache block,
Passing the baton
However, celebrations for the Museum Release project are tempered by the departure of senior red winemaker Kevin Glastonbury. Responsible for all of the wines issued in the current Museum Release, he will be leaving his role at Yalumba on 27 June.
With no successor yet announced, his departure leaves a gap in the specific knowledge of crafting these elite red blends and getting the best out of Yalumba’s ancient vineyards.
Glastonbury has spent 27 vintages with Yalumba. In that time he has masterfully curated the winery’s unique suite of Cabernet-driven blends with Shiraz – making him a global master of this particular red blend.
Glastonbury’s wines have earned Yalumba more than 70 trophies, including the Most Outstanding Barossa Red Wine for five consecutive years at the Barossa Wine Show. Yalumba was also awarded Best Shiraz Trophy at the Adelaide Wine Show in 2015 and 2016 for Yalumba The Octavius Old Vine Shiraz 2013.
The fruits of Glastonbury’s labours – and the considerable intelligence he has applied to crafting these wines – are clearly evident in this new Museum Release.
‘I can reflect on the development of these red wine styles over the years with great pride, and examining them in their maturity through the Museum Releases really shows off the merits of those winemaking decisions,’ says Glastonbury.
Kevin Glastonbury
