Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2005 Shiraz “Georgia’s Paddock” was aged in 20% new French and American oak. Yields for the wine were a meager 1.5 tons per acre. It exhibits an enticing perfume of smoke, pencil lead, mineral, blueberry, and blackberry. Made in an elegant style, the wine has lots of spice, rich flavors, plenty of depth, and a long finish.
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Wine Spectator
Bright and distinctly peppery on the nose, this is savory and appealing for its polished frame and range of dark berry flavors against notes of cedar and coffee. Not as tart as some Heathcote wines.
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.”
Historically some of Australia’s most lucrative gold country, today Heathcote maintains its esteemed reputation as a source of country’s best red wines. The rolling countryside of ancient reddish brown soils bordered by mountain ranges that funnel cool air into the region during the growing season create some of Australia’s most deeply-hued and impressively layered Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon wines.