Sigurd Red Blend 2016

We don’t typically associate Vikings with wine making, travelling to a French monastery and taking all the readymade wine, sure, but they didn’t seem all that interested in learning the nuances of viticulture. To be fair, if Ragnar ‘Lothbrok’ Sigurdsson is any barometer, there wasn’t all that much time for agriculture, what with the constant sailing and assassination attempts.

However, there was undoubtedly some latent winemaking prowess. Sigurd wines are named for Dan Graham’s great grandfather, who left his native homeland of Norway, landed in Australia and quite literally laid down roots. 4 generations on, Sigurd wines are of impeccable quality and made with the greatest respect for nature. Sigurd red is a curious blend of Grenache, Syrah, Nebbiolo and Mourvedre, full and well-structured with silky tannins, the palate is complex, ripe with flavours of Morello cherry, dark berries, dried thyme, violet and smoked cedar.

If Ragnar ever made it to Oz, he’d be leaving with nothing but this red blend!
Sigurd wines started back in 2012, when Dan Graham purchased his first grape parcel; a couple of tonnes of Grenache from the McLaren Vale, he made the wine for a friend and in 2013 the range of Sigurd wines were started.
Dan’s great grandfather Sigurd Gram had a small block of vines along with other stone fruit, purchased upon his return from the first world war, in Loxton, South Australia. This was predominately planted with a mixture of dried fruit/table grape varieties etc that were needed at the time.

Bruce, Dan’s grandfather married Joan his grandmother (Sigurd’s daughter), from there they had their own property close by in which Bruce had a similar style property but had wine grapes planted as well. Some of this fruit went to Peter Lehman’s winery in the Barossa.

The property no longer exists, however, Dan’s father Ralph, held onto the winemaking tradition and worked throughout the Riverland and Riverina where Dan grew up and was first exposed to the art of winemaking.

From this point his interest was locked into the wine industry and once he moved to the Barossa in 2011, the plan was always to start a small label with minimal intervention winemaking at the fore, something that Dan Graham evidently achieved.