Winemaker Notes
This is the most structured Syrah in Mullineux's Single Terroir range. On the nose there are notes of black pepper, black fruit and spices. The palate is full-bodied with a meaty, savory character, plenty silky tannins giving structure and a balancing natural acidity. The finish is fresh, long and supple.
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2019 Schist Syrah is floral and juicy with fantastic depth and finesse. Aromas of red plum and dusty raspberry sway with polish and purity before revealing seductive floral tones of rose and lavender in the glass. Medium to full-bodied, the wine is instantly impressive on the palate with supple tannins; it is both broad-shouldered and balanced and glides to a seductively long finish. Only 2,700 bottles were filled after the wine rested for a year in 50% new French oak. Rating: 94+
-
Wine & Spirits
This wine grows in a vineyard just below the Mullineux house and winery at Roundstone Farm on the southwest face of the Kasteelberg. 2019 was the last drought vintage before a wet winter later in the year—Chris and Andrea found that these soils, which have poor water retention anyway, managed the drought best. Dark and intense, there’s a magnetic hum behind this wine’s aromatic reticence. Let it pull you in to find a flood of burstingly juicy, jammy blueberry flavors, a head-filling rush of power and concentration. Like the peal of a tolling bell, that initial “whoosh” lasts, resonant, eventually showing some stemmy spice at the edges, suggesting age will bring that complexity forward.
-
Wine Spectator
Minerally on the nose, this vibrant red features a core of crushed raspberry and black plum fruit, wrapped in an aromatic thread of rose hip, sandalwood, dried thyme and graphite. Shows lightly chalky, well-meshed tannins, which provide fine definition and emerge to firm the finish. Elegant.
-
Decanter
Seductive perfumed nose, with black forest gateau, black olive, cocoa, violets and rose bud aromas. Chalky, dry palate with finegrained tannins.
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.”
Literally meaning "the black land," Swartland takes its name from the endangered, indigenous "renosterbos" (translating to rhino bush), which used to be plentiful enough to turn the entire landscape a dark color certain during times of year. The district, attracting some of the most adventurous and least interventionist winemakers, excels in robust and full-bodied reds as well as quality fortified wines.