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d'Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz 2016
RedAustralia2016
By Daniel Min · Tasted 2019-11-20 · Published 2026-09-09 · Updated 2026-09-09
At a glance
In one line
4.0/5 — higher than Vivino's 3.6 average · world avg price US$19 · James Suckling 92, Vivino community 3.6.
James Suckling 92 · Wine Enthusiast 90 · critics listed on Vivino 91 (Mar 2018) and 87 (Sep 2018) · The Real Review (Huon Hooke) reviewed it without a published score · QWine Reviews 90
Market note: This is d'Arenberg's entry-level Shiraz, part of 'The Originals' range and priced far below the flagship Dead Arm Shiraz. Vivino vintage averages have barely moved since 2007, sitting between 3.5 and 3.8.
Father's note — Daniel Min
Original author of the notes“Lemon, plum, black currant, vanilla, oak, I did aeration with a machine and the acidity was better than I thought.”
What I learned today: what a machine changes isn't the wine, but how fast the wine starts talking to you.
On Saturday, Minjae set a box on the counter. "New arrival at our mart. One button and the decanting's done." An electric aerator. Master Seo looked at the box, looked at Minjae, and without a word opened a bottle of red for us.
Minjae set the gadget on top of the bottle and pressed the button. Whoosh, gurgle. The wine took in air and fell into the glass. Plum, blackcurrant, vanilla, oak. And at the end, oddly, a lemony acidity glinted.
That whoosh opened the drawer. Late autumn when I was twenty-one, a Wednesday night with the wind rattling the window frame. On the kitchen table, on top of a cloth-wrapped bottle, sat a gadget I'd never seen. Father pressed the button — the same whoosh, gurgle. I burst out laughing, and Father, unbothered, held out my glass. I don't know the bottle's name.
At the end of the note is this sentence: "I did aeration with a machine and the acidity was better than I thought." Father probably pressed that button half as a toy that day. But he wrote down the result seriously.
Master Seo said one thing. "Air doesn't change the acid. It changes what you feel." Minjae quietly slipped the gadget back into its box. What I learned today: what a machine changes isn't the wine, but how fast the wine starts talking to you.
What this wine is
Start with the name. In 1912 Joseph Osborn sold his racehorses to buy a vineyard in McLaren Vale, South Australia. The proudest horse in his stable was called Footbolt. The producer's own technical sheet still says it plainly: "Joseph Osborn was a successful racehorse owner and Footbolt was the pride of his stable. In 1912 he made the hard decision to sell his horses to purchase the d'Arenberg property." The wine, originally called Old Vine Shiraz, took the horse's name in 1996.
The 'd'Arenberg' part comes from Frances Helena d'Arenberg, whom Joseph's son Frank married in 1920. The red-striped label was created in 1959 by the third generation, d'Arry Osborn, borrowing the crimson-and-white stripes of his school tie from Prince Alfred College. Chester Osborn, the fourth generation, became chief winemaker in 1984, and the house's gloriously strange cuvée names — The Laughing Magpie, The Money Spider, The Cenosilicaphobic Cat — are his, as is the five-storey Cube that opened on the estate in 2017.
The winemaking, by contrast, is stubbornly old. Small batches are gently crushed and moved to five-tonne open fermenters, and foot treading is done two thirds of the way through fermentation. The wine is then basket pressed and goes into a mix of new and used French and American oak barriques for 12–18 months, ageing on lees without racking, unfined and unfiltered. For 2016: 14.3% alcohol, pH 3.5, 1.3 g/L residual sugar.
What the world says
McLaren Vale sits 45 minutes south of Adelaide, wedged between Gulf St Vincent and the Mt Lofty Ranges, with a Mediterranean climate. The regional association puts the mean temperature at about 21.7°C across roughly 7,308 hectares of vineyard, with Shiraz at 54% of plantings. Sea breezes and gully winds are the thing that separates it from the Barossa Valley inland — which is why McLaren Vale Shiraz is usually described as more peppery, herbal and savoury, and Barossa Shiraz as sweeter and thicker. It is also one of the most geologically varied wine regions on earth, with more than 40 distinct geological units.
2016 was a good year. d'Arenberg's own note records average winter rainfall followed by a summer significantly warmer than average, including two January heatwaves, with subsequent rain and cool conditions restoring the balance between ripeness and flavour. Halliday Wine Companion's 2016 South Australia overview called it "one of the great McLaren Vale vintages in recent memory", naming Shiraz the standout variety.
The critics: James Suckling 92 — "A cherry-flavored nose that also offers up aromas of blackberry pie, cedar and spices. Medium to full body, grainy tannins, lots of fresh blue and black fruit and a chewy finish." Wine Enthusiast 90 — "Tightly wound and somewhat closed, the plump plum, blueberry and spice tones of this wine unravel with time in the glass." Both, in their own words, say the same thing: it needs time.
The Vivino community of 1,682 averages 3.6. The single largest bucket is 3 stars, with 850 ratings; only 42% go to 4 or above. The keywords are plum, blackberry and blackcurrant; oak, vanilla and chocolate; and pepper, 273 times. Structure reads intensity 4.7/5 — very high — against acidity of just 3.1.
"Classic Aussie shiraz, super dark almost black, peppery nose, big bold fruit! Simple but great as it delivers what you expect!" — Vivino review, Jul 2021, 4 stars
"Full body, dry, medium tannins, low acidity, oak, tobacco, dark fruit and cherry; mineral rather than earthy." — Vivino review, May 2020, 4 stars
How I drank it
November 20, 2019, 4 stars. It is the only bottle I logged that day. The note reads: "Lemon, plum, black currant, vanilla, oak, I did aeration with a machine and the acidity was better than I thought."
Most of my notes from that period are a list of aromas and nothing more. This one is different. It records an action — machine aeration — and a result: the acidity was better than expected. Among my November 2019 entries, an action paired with its outcome is rare. So I went and checked that single line.
An aerator and a decanter are not the same job. Wine Spectator's Dr. Vinny sums up what contact with air does in two words: "it triggers oxidation and evaporation", and adds that "usually the volatile undesirable compounds will evaporate faster than the desirable, aromatic and flavorful ones." A pour-through or in-neck aerator can do that same work "possibly faster and more aggressively than by just pouring the wine into a decanter". The trade-off is that older wines collapse under that speed, and neither tool "will not make a bad wine magically turn good". Young, sturdy wine — this Footbolt was three years old in 2019 — is what handles fast aeration best.
The acidity itself does not change. A few minutes of air does not move a wine's titratable acidity or its pH (this one's pH is printed on the fact sheet as 3.5). What changes is what was sitting on top of the acid. A 2016 paper in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry by David Wollan, Duc-Truc Pham and Kerry Wilkinson (University of Adelaide) measured losses of 0.9 to 1.9% alcohol by volume from uncovered glasses left in airflow for two hours. And a 2024 OENO One study by de-la-Fuente-Blanco and colleagues found that within the 12–15% band, ethanol shifts the perception of sourness in a distinctly non-linear way, while astringency in red wine rises as alcohol rises. Lose a little alcohol and the acid behind it reads sharper — not because there is more acid, but because there is less covering it.
The line between what is documented and what is folklore is just as clear. Asked for hard data on aeration, Dr. Vinny answered that "the results that you'd like to measure are how a wine tastes and smells, and there's no good way to assess that except anecdotally." So the manufacturer's claim that a few seconds through a gadget equals an hour in a decanter is not a measured figure. And the Australian Wine Research Institute warns against blindly pumping air into a wine to blow off a reductive smell: aerated mercaptans oxidise into disulfides, which copper fining can no longer remove. "Air always helps" belongs on the folklore side.
My 4 sits 0.4 above the Vivino community's 3.6 and points the same way as Suckling's 92 and Wine Enthusiast's 90. Two critics wrote that this wine needs time; I used a machine to buy that time early, and wrote down what happened. I met d'Arenberg once more, on January 9, 2025, with The Dead Arm Shiraz 2017 — another 4. There is no re-tasting of the Footbolt on record.
Vivino community data
2016 vintage rating distribution (1682 ratings, average 3.6)
| 5★ | 77 (5%) | |
| 4★ | 633 (38%) | |
| 3★ | 850 (51%) | |
| 2★ | 105 (6%) | |
| 1★ | 17 (1%) |
Most-mentioned aromas
| Family | Mentions | Top keywords |
|---|---|---|
| Black fruit | 1072 | plum 303 · blackberry 276 · blackcurrant 109 · black fruit 89 · dark fruit 80 |
| Oak | 820 | oak 327 · vanilla 127 · chocolate 108 · tobacco 68 · dark chocolate 45 |
| Spice | 507 | pepper 273 · licorice 65 · cinnamon 41 · mint 34 · eucalyptus 21 |
| Earth & leather | 312 | leather 95 · earthy 68 · smoke 65 · cocoa 14 · tar 9 |
| Red fruit | 282 | cherry 145 · raspberry 44 · red fruit 38 · cranberry 15 · strawberry 13 |
| Dairy & ferment | 42 | cheese 20 · cream 13 · banana 4 |
| Dried fruit | 40 | prune 25 · raisin 7 · fig 5 |
Structure: Acidity 3.1/5 · Intensity 4.7/5 · Tannin 3.3/5 · Sweetness 2.0/5
Average by vintage (all vintages: 14455 ratings, average 3.7)
| Vintage | Average | Ratings |
|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 3.5 | 240 |
| 2008 | 3.7 | 339 |
| 2009 | 3.7 | 681 |
| 2010 | 3.6 | 831 |
| 2011 | 3.6 | 767 |
| 2012 | 3.6 | 980 |
| 2013 | 3.7 | 879 |
| 2014 | 3.7 | 821 |
| 2015 | 3.6 | 682 |
| 2016 | 3.6 | 1682 |
| 2017 | 3.7 | 2072 |
| 2018 | 3.7 | 997 |
| 2019 | 3.8 | 945 |
| 2020 | 3.7 | 247 |
| 2021 | 3.8 | 888 |
| 2022 | 3.8 | 88 |
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→Frequently asked questions
What kind of wine is d'Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz?
A 100% Shiraz red from d'Arenberg in McLaren Vale, Australia. It is fermented in open fermenters with foot treading partway through, basket pressed, then aged 12–18 months in French and American oak barriques, unfined and unfiltered. For 2016: 14.3% alcohol, pH 3.5. A classic Australian Shiraz of plum, blackberry, pepper and oak — James Suckling 92, Vivino community 3.6.
What does the name 'Footbolt' mean?
It is a racehorse. In 1912 Joseph Osborn sold his stable to buy the McLaren Vale property, and Footbolt was the horse he prized most. The producer's own technical sheet states the origin directly, and the wine — originally 'Old Vine Shiraz' — was renamed after the horse in 1996.
How much does it cost?
Overseas retail runs US$19–20 (wine.com US$18.99, Mission Wines US$19.99, checked September 2026), with an Australian RRP of AU$18. The Wine-Searcher world average is US$16 per 750ml ex-tax (August 2026), and its aggregate critic score is 88/100 from seven reviews.
Does an aerator really make a difference?
Partly. What is documented: air contact triggers oxidation and evaporation, blowing off volatile compounds such as reductive notes first, and an uncovered glass loses 0.9–1.9% alcohol by volume over two hours (JAFC, 2016). Sensory work shows that between 12% and 15% alcohol, a change in ethanol shifts how sour and how astringent a red wine tastes (OENO One, 2024). What is not: the numbers themselves — titratable acidity and pH — do not move in a few minutes, and there is no measured data behind the claim that seconds through a gadget equals an hour of decanting. Young, tannic, fruit-dense wines like a three-year-old Shiraz respond well; old wines are at risk.
Links & sources
View on Vivino · Prices on Wine-Searcher
- Vivino — wine page and community data
- d'Arenberg — The Footbolt Shiraz 2016 official technical sheet (name origin, winemaking, 2016 vintage, analysis)
- d'Arenberg — family history timeline (1912 purchase, 1959 red-stripe label, 1996 renaming, the Cube)
- Halliday Wine Companion — 2016 South Australia vintage overview / wine.com — 2016 Footbolt critic reviews (Suckling 92, Wine Enthusiast 90)
- Wine Spectator 'Dr. Vinny' on aeration · Wollan, Pham & Wilkinson, JAFC 64(40), 2016 · de-la-Fuente-Blanco et al., OENO One, 2024 · AWRI on volatile sulfur compounds
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