The rating for 2004 Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz Barossa Valley is 95 points from Robert Parker and the tasting note - Kaesler’s icon cuvee is their Shiraz Old Bastard, produced from a single vineyard planted in 1896, and aged 22 months in 100% new French oak. The 2004 is a big yet remarkably elegant, deep purple-colored Shiraz offering notes of blueberries, black raspberries, and toasty oak, a superb texture, admirable richness, and a long, heady finish. There is plenty of tannin lurking beneath the cascade of fruit, glycerin, and extract. While accessible, it is too young to drink at present, and is meant to keep for 2-3 decades. The rating for 2002 Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz Barossa Valley is 96 points from Robert Parker and the tasting note - The flagship offering, the 2002 Shiraz Old Bastard was fashioned from a vineyard planted in 1896, and was cropped at one ton of fruit per acre. It spent 22 months in French oak before being bottled with neither fining nor filtration. A spectacular perfume of raspberries, plums, blackberries, espresso, vanilla, and charcoal is followed by a tannic Shiraz with a huge palate, massive concentration, tremendous richness, and a multidimensional flavor profile. Less alcoholic (15.2%) than The Bogan, it should be cellared for 4-6 years, and consumed over the following 20-25. While the 2002 is a brilliant effort, it is not quite as massive as the 2001 ... but that’s splitting hairs. The rating for 2005 Kaesler Old Bastard Shiraz Barossa Valley is 98 points from Robert Parker and the tasting note - As good as the preceding wines may be, they pale in the shadow of the 2005 Shiraz “Old Bastard,” sourced from a 114-year-old vineyard, and which spent 22 months in new and one-year-old French oak. It presents a superb perfume of cedar, violets, lavender, smoked meat, game, black raspberry, and blueberry. This leads to a voluptuous, velvety-textured, layered, super concentrated Shiraz in perfect balance with well-concealed tannins and a 60-second, pure finish. The Kaesler family, of Silesian origin, emigrated to the Barossa in the 1840s. The winemaking is in the hands of Reid Bosward and Stephen Dew.