Adelina Wines Clare Valley Shiraz 2018
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James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Winemaker Notes
Hand picked, destemmed and about 50% whole berry fermentation. 27 days on skins, pressed to larger format neutral French oak for 8 months. 100 year old vines.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
OMG! This ancient parcel of shiraz has delivered phenomenal purity and intensity in 2018 with such poise and detail. Tangy and attractively sinewy red plums fill the palate in linear style. This brand of purity in shiraz is rarely seen, something akin to a great Hermitage, or even Barolo.
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Wine Enthusiast
This elegant, softly spoken Clare Valley Shiraz opens with gentle floral and red berry notes, underscored by graphite, mineral and spice nuances. The palate is medium in weight and ultra fresh. It lacks some fruit weight to soften all that acidity, but overall is bright, with length and focus. Drink now–2027.
Adelina Wines is a small vineyard and winery in the Springfarm sub-region of Clare, set amongst one of the most historically relevant winery and vineyards in Australia. The plantings of well established Shiraz, Grenache and Pedro Ximenez, some dating back to the turn of the 20th century and recent plantings, of Shiraz, Mataro and Malbec are NASAA certified. The talent involved in this winery is impressive with both Col McBryde and Jen Gardner both holding PHD’s in Oenology, although the winemaking and technology remain quite simple and traditional. All the wines are exceptionally crafted reflecting Col and Jenny’s passion and winemaking intelligence.
Marked by an unmistakable deep purple hue and savory aromatics, Syrah makes an intense, powerful and often age-worthy red. Native to the Northern Rhône, Syrah achieves its maximum potential in the steep village of Hermitage and plays an important component in the Red Rhône Blends of the south, adding color and structure to Grenache and Mourvèdre. Syrah is the most widely planted grape of Australia and is important in California and Washington. Sommelier Secret—Such a synergy these three create together, the Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre trio often takes on the shorthand term, “GSM.”
The Clare Valley is actually a series of narrow north to south valleys, each with a different soil type and slightly different weather patterns along their stretch. In the southern heartland between Watervale and Auburn, there is mainly a crumbled, red clay loam soil called terra rossa and cool breezes come in from Gulf St. Vincent. A few miles north, in Polish Hill, is soft, red loam over clay; westerlies blowing in from the Spencer Gulf influece this area's climate.
The differences in soil, elevation, degree of slope and weather enable the region to produce some of Australia’s finest, aromatic, spicy and lime-pithy Rieslings, as well as excellent Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Malbec with ripe plummy fruit, good acid and big structure.
Clare Valley is an isolated farming country with a continental climate known for its warm and sunny days, followed by cool nights—perfect for wine grapes’ development of sugar and phenolic ripeness in conjunction with notable acidity levels.