$50.00
This is the shining light of the 2023 vintage, deliciously plush, perfumed, svelte and silky. It shows all the complexity that the fourteen different clones of Shiraz in the Mayford vineyard bring to the blend. A wine to savour slowly as a young wine and one that will gloriously reward patience if cellared.
Released November 2025
A mild and European style of season produced elegant, perfumed and structural Shiraz with enormous aging potential. The 2023 harvest was the third in a cool cycle and the crop enjoyed the benefits of long, slow ripening without extreme temperatures.
The Mayford vineyard currently has 14 different clones of Shiraz planted, many of which are hard-to-come-by heritage clones. Each brings a different expression of the variety and contributes complexity and interest to the overall blend. The new clonal plantings give perfume and fragrance- the original 28 year-old Shiraz block bringing maturity, depth and power.
Small parcels of Shiraz were selectively hand-picked over the last week of March and first week of April and vinified separately according to clone and harvest date. Each batch was chilled and cold soaked prior to spontaneous fermentation by indigenous yeasts. Complexity was enhanced by varying times on skins, percentages of whole berry/bunch, degrees of post ferment maceration and of course a diverse range of cooperages. Oak maturation was in French barriques for 18 months, 30% new.
“This wine looks both very young and very good. It’s a wine of finesse, and flavour, and polish, and finish. It shows more cherries than plums, more spice than toast, more delicacy than oomph. And yet it comfortably fills the mouth with flavour, and comes with highlights of orange rind and Campari, and is slipped with such impressively fine tannin. It’s a new-fashioned – and arguably more elite – version of an old-fashioned Ovens Valley Burgundy. There are few higher compliments that can be bestowed.”
96 Points Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
Drink 2030 – 2040+
Bottled February 2025
Bottled under screwcap.
