Winemakers Tasting Notes
The bouquet is beautifully perfumed fruit and coffee oak. The palette has ultra fine- grained tannins that are totally unobtrusive and provide a solid backbone to hold the wine together and provide a lovely mouth feel. Savoury coffee and clove from the oak combine with sweet underlying red berry fruit and savoury blackberry flavours. Like all the wines from this winery, it is full-bodied, has a solid structure and firm consistency. The complexity is harmonious and agreeable, the wine just slips down and it is ready to be drunk now.

The bouquet shows clove, blackberry and coffee, so there is a fair amount of oak influence, but less than in previous years. Fine, powdery, drying tannins combine with fresh, lively acid and pure fruit to produce an ample-weight, well-balanced wine with a supple consistency, solid structure and agreeable complexity. Clove, plum, black cherry, a minor amounts of dried herbs, and slightly green tannins, (which are no doubt are a product of the vintage); the wine finishes with good length and whilst my rating might be seen as a bit harsh, it is a good result for a difficult year. Rated as Recommended with **** for value, drink from 2009 and beyond. Ric Einstein, the Opinionated Red Bigot, Torbwine, June 2007

General Notes
This wine represents the top of our stable. The wine is bottle matured a minimum of 12 months prior to release.
Lunar Block was purchased on July 20th 1969; the day man walked on the moon and consequently has since been known as 'Lunar Block'. The vines were at least 10 years old back then and now represent some of the oldest vines on the property.
Low cropping with minimal irrigation creates vine balance ensuring fruit with great colour and concentrated varietal characteristics. It is recommended that this wine decanted prior to serving as this will allow the wine to show its true potential, and I trust you won't be disappointed. The 2003 Kurtz Family Vineyards Lunar Block Shiraz is the fifth release of this individual vineyard block wine.

The wine was made with minimal interference from the winemaker. Fermentation was for 7 - 10 days depending on which parcel of fruit. Malo-lactic ferment was encouraged as soon as primary ferment was completed. 2 barrels were produced and kept separate until final blending.

Reviews and Awards

2003 Lunar Block Shiraz:
**** Winestate July August Issue 2007. New releases.

2004 Lunar Block Shiraz
The winery's flagship wine, it is only made in the best years. The grapes are sourced from 45-year-old vines and then basket pressed. The wine was matured for twenty nine months in new French oak. Most of the grapes from these vines regularly wind up in a wine that costs four times as much as the Lunar Block. Everyone should have hobby that produces something this good for the price.

The bouquet is inviting. Beautiful, clean fruit dominates the bouquet that is offset by spicy/smoky, vanillin oak characters. As it opened up, sweet fruit notes emerged. Pure, deeply-seated fruit is perfectly balanced to the fine tannins, and is lifted by bright acid. An interesting, contrasting flavour profile results from the plum, sour cherry, and sweet sarsaparilla flavours that finishes with reasonable length, and excellent persistence. There is a huge amount of fruit power for its muscular-weight. An ultra-tight, solid wine, that maintains some class, it demands time in the cellar, and this gorgeous baby is Rated as Highly Recommended with ***** for value and easily completes with wine is selling at $45, and more. The rating will improve as the wine enters its peak drinking window between 2012 and 2020. Sealed under cork, it’s the best wine that Kurtz has produced and although it spent a long time in oak, it’s well judged and under control.
Ric Einstein- Torbwine Nov08

A most attractive medium-bodied wine, with a spirited display of warm spices on a bed of red and black fruits, the tannins ripe and oak subtle; excellent length. Has many similarities to the ’05 but with better colour and slightly more depth and length to the blackberry and spice fruit; perfect tannin and oak balance
. Rating 95 To 2016. James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2010 Edition

2005 Lunar Block Shiraz

A most attractive medium-bodied wine, with a spirited display of warm spices on a bed of red and black fruits, the tannins ripe and oak subtle; excellent length.
Rating 94 To 2015. James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2010 Edition