Winemaker Notes
Enormously flavorsome with rich fruit characters of black cherry, plum and ripe berries. American oak adds nuances of vanilla, cigar box, coffee and toast.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
I tasted a representative blend of the 2018 St Andrews Shiraz that was assembled out of several barrels, and it's even more promising than the 2017. It's brighter and fresher on the nose, with bigger and redder fruit notes. It's also full-bodied and plush, loaded with cherries and raspberries, all on a plush cushion of creamy, vanilla-laden oak.
Barrel Sample: 91-94 -
Wine Enthusiast
With 2018 a strong vintage down under, this wine wears it well. Plush yet high-toned currant and plum-fruit characteristics are followed by a sanguine note—like iodine—along with cedar, mint, pencil lead and a seaweed, umami-like nuance. The mouthfeel is distinctive: tannins like sandpaper but the fruit silky and tangy. There's power here but drinkability too. Cellar for several years for added complexity or crack open now with a roast lamb or similarly comforting cold-weather cuisine.
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.