Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Sometimes you just want to drink a glass of succulent, red wine. Well, this is the ticket, the 2013 Jim Berry The Lodge Hill Shiraz is perfect for current enjoyment. The packs plenty of grapey, ripe berry flavors that seem to just sail onto the palate. Bring out the grill and pair this one with a well-marbled rib eye of beef.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
Medium to deep garnet-purple in color, the 2013 Shiraz The Lodge Hill is redolent of eucalyptus, Chinese five spice, blackberries, black cherries and pepper hints, then fills the medium to full-bodied palate with a good amount of chewy tannins and plenty of spicy black fruit before ending medium to long in the finish.
-
Wine Enthusiast
This medium-bodied shiraz is remarkably fresh and vibrant, deftly blending maple syrup and smoke with red berries, then easing into a firm, dusty finish. Drink now–2025.
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.