Agricola is a young Barossa Valley label founded by Callum Powell, son of Torbreck founder Dave Powell, and quickly positioned among the region's 'New Barossa' movement for lighter, lower-alcohol, site-driven Shiraz. The DWxHV bottling combines fruit from the Hoffmann Dallwitz vineyard - plantings dating from 1996 back to 1888 - with Shiraz from the Angas family's 1961 Hutton Vale plot. These are old, dry-grown Barossa sites on the region's classic clay and ironstone soils, farmed for low yields and hand-picked. The 2023 Barossa season was cooler and slower than the recent norm, aiding freshness and the fine tannin and Italianate, savoury profile critics noted in the wine.

Fruit from each vineyard is fermented separately, in the low-intervention style Powell favours, with whole-bunch inclusion contributing lift, spice and a firm but fine tannin frame. Ferments run wild in the main, with gentle handling on skins before pressing. Maturation is carried out largely in seasoned, larger-format oak so that wood remains a textural rather than flavouring element, keeping the emphasis on the vineyards' character - ripe plum, cola, gingery and curry-spice notes over a black-tea tannin grip. Alcohol is deliberately restrained relative to Barossa tradition, and the wine is built for both near-term drinking and the cellar.