20/20 - Matthew Jukes - November 2017
98/100 - Joe Czerwinski - Wine Advocate Issue# 238 September 2018, USA
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The Eye of Ra is an ultra-premium Shiraz that reflects Ben Glaetzer’s aspiration to make the perfect wine. A wine with astounding power and complexity countered by exemplary elegance.

In Egyptian mythology, The Eye of Ra was the powerful feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra. The Eye’s forceful protective deeds were celebrated alongside its nurturing life giving gifts to Egypt. The symbol depicts the sun surrounded by protective cobras and wings.

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In Egyptian mythology, The Eye of Ra was the powerful feminine counterpart to the sun god Ra and was also personified by a number of Egyptian goddesses.
The Eye of Ra gifted renewal, life giving power and the annual Nile floodwaters that restored fertility to Egypt. These caring actions were celebrated along with The Eye’s forceful protective deeds. The symbol depicts the sun surrounded by two protective cobras and wings. The Eye of Ra represented a polarity of the extreme force of the sun’s heat countered by the sun’s nurturing gaze. Similarly Ben Glaetzer developed The Eye of Ra Shiraz that features incredible depth and power countered by exemplary elegance and restraint leading to amazing evolution in the bottle and glass.

I have always aspired to create the perfect wine. The Eye of Ra Shiraz journey began when I was tasting fruit out in the Barossa Valley Ebenezer vineyards during the amazing 2016 vintage.  I realised that fruit from selected individual vines across a small number of chosen  vineyards had the outstanding combination of characters to create a wine to be the epitome of Barossa Shiraz. The wine then progressed through vinification exceeding the highest levels of my expectations.  To me, The Eye of Ra 2016 Shiraz represents the very best that the famed Ebenezer district in the Barossa Valley has to offer from a truly extraordinary 2016 vintage.  It is the first wine I have released that I have deemed to be beyond exceptional.

Ben Glaetzer

TERROIR & VINEYARDS
The Eye of Ra 2016 Shiraz was sourced from selected vines from four outstanding  vineyards out of the famed Ebenezer sub district at the northern tip of the Barossa Valley.
The fruit was hand harvested from low yielding vines aged up to 110 years predominantly in deep sandy soils of a red brown texture known as contrast soils.

WINEMAKING
The parcels were fermented separately in small open fermenters and gently hand plunged 3 times daily. During fermentation the temperature was kept very cool (sub 18˚ C) to enhance the fresh aromatic profile without over extraction. The wine was then matured for 16 months in 100% new French oak hogsheads with natural malolactic fermentation continuing in oak during maturation. The fine grained French hogsheads were of the highest quality with tannin profiles selected to best express the flavours of the individual parcels.

TASTING NOTES
The Eye of Ra 2016 Shiraz offers a bouquet of radiant intensity with masses of wild herbs, spiced plum and a cornucopia of blackberry and cedar scents. Showing astounding depth and volume at all levels, the dark and brooding nature of the wine is only enhanced
with time in the glass. 
The palate is rich and generous yet elegantly structured. Taut, compelling and effortlessly classy displaying sublime fruit purity with an inky line and a wonderfully balanced framework of finely polished tannin. Vibrant multilayered and complex flavours of dark plum, liquorice and dried spice finishing with juicy acidity and an amazingly long, bright and fresh finish. Extended cellaring will most definitely reward as the wine will further evolve to provide many decades of pure vinous enjoyment.