Winemaker Notes
This wine is inky, deep red in color, with aromas of black cherry, dark plums, vanilla and dark chocolate. The palate shows medium to full bodied ripe black cherry and plum fruit, subtle integrated vanillin oak with mocha richness. The fine grained talc-like soft tannins support a lingering finish.
Can be enjoyed now or will improve with careful cellaring over the next 5-7 years. Suited to robust red meat dishes such as beef or lamb.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2005 Shiraz "The Lodge Hill" contains 5% Malbec. It was aged for 13 months in 80% American and 20% French oak. It delivers a pleasant perfume of cedar, black pepper, pencil lead, game, and blueberry. Full-bodied and structured, it has tons of ripe fruit, excellent balance, and a lengthy finish. It will evolve for 2-3 years and drink well through 2015. It is an excellent value.
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Wine Spectator
Smooth and ripe, with hints of eucalyptus and caramel sneaking into the blackberry and tar flavor profile. Finishes with an open texture and refined tannins. Best from 2008 through 2015. 3,000 cases imported.
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.