Reviews
A review from Nick Ryan
Nick Ryan | Wine columnist for The Australia newspaper, a regular contributor Gourmet Traveller Wine & GQ
What you’re looking at are some really good wines, born from meticulously managed vineyards and made with aim of expressing the true nature of those vineyards as a guiding principle.
I’m impressed with how all of these wines are holding up. A slightly gentler winemaking touch, especially in 2017, has allowed these wines to evolve in a really pleasing way. They’ve retained freshness and primary fruit, yet allow space for appropriate development to start to emerge.
2016 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
This is a really classy wine, mid-weighted and finely framed. A wine of carefully considered architecture.
Violets and sage nestle among some fragrant dark berried fruit, hints of soft mint in there too, with a fine, cedary seam running right through the wine.
The tannin management here is really impressive. Fully resolved, seamlessly integrated and incredibly fine and dusty, the tannins remain tightly coiled and taper the fine through a really long finish.
2016 Reserve Shiraz
Wine of real complexity and detail, built on plush red fruits, warm spices, rubbed rosemary and a wisp of smoke from a distant fire on which game meats are grilling.
It’s generous but not overblown, the restraint with which its power is deployed is admirable.
Fine powdery tannins shape the wine, tapering it, etching it, driving it through the finish.
2017 Shiraz
Supple and softly spiced, with a plush core of dark fruit. Dark plums, raspberries, faint eucalypt and red earth.
The magical matrix of generosity and structure that defines great Clare shiraz.
Really lovely momentum across the palate and beautifully buffed tannins.
2017 Cabernet Shiraz
This is a wine proudly displaying its regional origins, rippling with the textbook dark fruit, spearmint, licorice and ironstone characters that define the region’s best cabernet based blends.
It’s fine framed and nicely poised, lots of lively red fruits and a bright juiciness to the palate. Gently grippy, tightly wound tannins provide impressive length. It’s developing really well and will continue to do so for quite a while yet.
