Intro
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Shiraz to try
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Battles
Granitis Shiraz 2024
Perth HillsIt’s often hard to make a beautiful shiraz. Yes, there are very good ones, excellent ones, but beauty is something different, which this wine has as its calling card. It’s elegant, composed and so aromatic. Floral, full of dark fruit, spice and savouriness. Shapely if fine tannins, some bresaola and pops of fruit across the medium-bodied palate. It is such a pleasure to drink this now, even if it will cellar well. Your choice. -
Centare Vineyard
Winemaker Selection Shiraz 2024
Yarra ValleyA barrel selection with 60% whole bunches and matured in 30% new French barriques. A dense ruby. Initially this was quite closed but after a few minutes it slowly opened up, revealing aromas of dark fruits, violets, freshly ground black pepper and just a little cedar. And despite its concentration and power on the palate, it remains lithe and very well balanced. The tannins are firm and in harmony with the fruit and this very well-made wine should slowly unfurl and reveal itself fully over the next decade and beyond. -
Kay Brothers
Block 6 Shiraz 2023
McLaren ValeThe iconic Block 6 comprises 1.5ha of vines planted in 1892. The last two vintages of Block 6 have been excellent, with this completing a podium finish. This sits side by side with the '21. Hard to split. Integration of oak is a thing. It’s present, providing some luxury adornment, but it meshes so well with the fruit. Blackberry and boysenberry, dried olive and preserved black cherry, salted red plum, struck iron, dark spices, the scent of rocky, hungry soils, cordite, star anise, bergamot tea. It’s just 13.5% alcohol, but it’s invested with flavour and detail. It feels like history, a little like a wine from another time, vividly alive in the present. -
Brokenwood
Vegas Block Shiraz 2024
Hunter ValleyThere is so much going on in this wine. Shiraz is co-planted with 5% each of pinot noir and trebbiano, and 30% of the ferment is whole bunch. The result is a mix of mulberries, cranberries and strawberries, with sorrel, lemon and fresh herbs. The palate is beautifully supple and long, with an overall sense of freshness and life. It takes your mind and palate in a completely different direction. A wine of real personality and character, evolving in the glass. Contemplative and complex. -
Serafino Wines
Sharktooth Shiraz 2023
McLaren ValeFrom the coolest part of the estate on alluvial sand, clay and gravel, all French oak, 30% new. The '23 shiraz suite from Serafino is impressive, such flavour-deep yet poised wines, paying respects to styles of old, but in such a refined way, with everything so finely tuned. Brambly berries, boysenberry, black plum, mulberry, blackberry pastille, saltbush and bushland scrub, the oak an agreeably suave presence, with fine vanilla, ginger and char notes. It’s full bodied, but it’s not imposing, the tannic framework superfine, acidity on song, the finish trailing into the far distance. Power and finesse. Nailed it. -
Centare Vineyard
Old Block Shiraz 2024
Yarra ValleyMade with fruit from the estate's original 1998 plantings. 35% whole bunches and 20% new French and Hungarian oak. A deep crimson purple. Like the '23, this is crammed full of dark fruits intermingled with gentle oak-derived cedar and vanillin notes, violets and baking spices. The palate is both plushly fruited and structured and, like its predecessor, will need at least another 12–18 months for all the components to come together. -
De Iuliis
Limited Release Shiraz 2019
Hunter ValleyA sumptuous interpretation of a warm year. Lots of extract, complemented by oak that, while still unresolved, should find its place in time. Blue and black fruits. A core of raspberry liqueur. Spice, sassafras and Hunter earth, driving long. Bury this and believe. -
Fervor
Edward Syrah 2022
Frankland RiverA savoury, spicy, fragrant syrah that delivers with deep, dark berry and plummy fruit characters. It has lashings of peppery and brown spice, game meat characters, dried herbs, dashes of piquant clove and a sinewy, succulent finish. It's quite the powerhouse red for the nomenclature of 'syrah' but manages many of the expected characters of that, in balance, and drives with energy despite its depth. A serious red, and a serious contender. -
Hoffmann Family Vineyards
North by Adrian Hoffmann Dallwitz Block Shiraz 2018
Barossa ValleyShiraz from the famed Hoffmann Dallwitz block that sees a whopping five years in new French oak. An impressively scaled wine, what with its impenetrable dark crimson hue and thick cassis and plum conserve fruit depth. It's cut from the 'classic' Barossan cloth of big fruit, big oak and big flavours, a direction that, truth must be told, many lean away from these days. But these styles have both their fans and their place and this ticks a lot of boxes for those that seek a full-bodied, powerful wine. Spice-laden, with fruitcake, cedar, asphalt, prunes, roasting meats, Old Gold chocolate and licorice. It is a wine of immense concentration and stature. -
Paisley Wines
Texture Series Angaston Shiraz 2021
Eden ValleySingle-vineyard shiraz sourced from 440m above sea level at Angaston in the Eden Valley and matured in oak for 24 months. Deep magenta/crimson in the glass with opulent blackberry, blueberry and satsuma plum fruits over hints of fruitcake spice, sage, pastis, bay leaf, dark chocolate, violets, cedar, graphite and roasting meats. Full bodied with a beautiful, sleek line of travel, finely poised, lacy acidity and crushed-quartz tannins. There's a really nice palate shape to this wine, not to mention a long, sustained stretch of flavour on the back end. -
Saddler's Creek Wines
Alessandro Reserve Shiraz 2023
Hunter ValleyThis wine showcases a single parcel of fruit from the Parish vineyard. It is a big, bold style – full in body with plentiful tannin. The fruit is dark, dense and concentrated, in the mulberry sphere, with a touch of fresh bay leaf. Hearty, warming, long and rich; it will benefit from time in the cellar.
