2021 Torbreck The Laird Shiraz, Barossa Valley

The Laird is a primordial leviathan in 2021 with immense ripeness, power and musculature.  It is also amazingly showy and imposing, and it rushes, before you have a chance to be prepared, whereupon it assaults every inch of your olfactory circuit. Clouds of haze, comets and shooting stars fizz and arc across your taste buds and tectonic plates of flavour collide. The fruit density and sweetness are part seismic and part absurd, and while it is almost too big for my tastes, there are legions of fans who will go gaga for this wine.

19.5+/20 points Matthew Jukes, June 2026

Deep crimson. Complex black cherry, roasted chestnut, cedar aromas with praline. Beautifully balanced and richly flavoured wine with black cherry, roasted chestnut, smoky oak notes, supple chocolaty/touch graphite/muscular tannins and superb marzipan, vanilla complexity. Liquorice notes at the finish with lovely roasted chestnut, grilled almond notes. First growth elevage. 1958 shiraz plantings. Now–2045

99 points Andrew Caillard & Jeni Port for The Vintage Journal, August 2026

The 2021 The Laird is from the Laird vineyard, planted in 1958. This is dark, dense and brooding in its styling, showcasing a depth that the Forebear expresses differently. The latter vineyard (the Hillside vineyard) is almost a hundred years older than the Laird, and I find this to be a curious and interesting fact that bears little on the quality of the wine but heavily impacts/defines the character. The first time the fruit was sourced was in 2004, but it was 2005 that the first Laird was produced; the vineyard was finally purchased in full by Torbreck in 2014. The vineyard is split in its soil types, with black and red clay east to west, and the two sections are picked at different times, as the fruit ripens differently. So, to the wine. Aromatically the wine leads with cocoa and cigar, armchair leather and old books. The palate follows this same smoking-room character and veritably stains the palate in flavor and length. This is a wine of enormous impact, one that lingers and stays in the mouth for ages after the wine has gone. The wine is moody and late-night in its vibe. Drink to 2056.

98 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, April 2026

This is from the Gnadenfrei vineyard, planted with Shiraz in 1958. It spends three years in new barrels from Dominique Laurent, known as ‘magic casks’. This is vivid with ripe black cherry and blackberry fruit, some saltiness, and spicy, cedary woody notes, as well as a hint of clove. Vivid and spice laden, showing a lot of smoky oak. The oak is winning at the moment, but this may well resolve with time.

93 points Jamie Goode for Wineanorak, May 2026