Winemaker Notes
#20 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2018
Exhibiting the typical characters of mixed red berries with a general spiciness to the velvety, viscous, well balanced and rounded palate. A powerful wine, with fine, supple tannins and a fabulous length. Great longevity again, but regardless, this will immediately appear on wine lists matched to grilled red meats without any detriment.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A big, rich wine, the 2015 Georgia's Paddock Shiraz offers deep, earthy notes of black olive and espresso that complement the blackberry and plum fruit. There's a hint of menthol that helps lift the wine and avoid any undue sense of heaviness—a notable accomplishment in a wine that's labeled at 15% alcohol. Full-bodied and velvety in texture, complex and long, with two decades of aging potential, there's simply nothing to criticize here.
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Wine Spectator
Fragrant notes of dried rose petal and white truffle indicate something special. Inside, this offers a fleshy, velvety mix of toasted rye bread, spicy plum jam and framboise flavors. Elegant and plush, but with plenty of power within, flexing on the expressive, expansive finish that goes on and on. Drink now through 2035.
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Wine & Spirits
The 30 acres of shiraz planted at Georgia’s Paddock face northwest, the vines growing on their own roots in deep Cambrian soils. Farmed with biodynamic practices and made without added yeasts or acids, this wine is stripped down to its zesty blackberry depths, that blackness of fruit and tannins creating a broad bandwidth of flavor. It ranges from sweet cherry tomato to luxurious bitter chocolate notes while focusing on the black fruit in the middle. Vibrant.
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.