Wine Advocate (100)

The fitting capstone to what was a terrific vintage for Clarendon Hills, the 2015 Astralis Syrah is destined to become a McLaren Vale legend. Remarkably precise, complex and pristine aromas of anise, pepper, mint and blueberries lead the way. They're followed by a full-bodied yet impeccably ripe palate that's dense and concentrated yet supple, leading into a velvety, nearly endless finish. Wow.

James Suckling (98)

East-facing, sandy clay and rocky at the bottom. This is a very intense, layered style of wine with complex, rich, suave and sophisticated style. Intense aromas of dark plums, blackberries and spice with brown-pepper and grilled-meat notes. The palate has such dense, supple and long tannins and delivers blackberry, plum and licorice flavors in regal and impressive mode. The power is delivered so smoothly with full commitment to flavor. Try from 2024.

Wine Advocate (98)

If you could drink this 2018 Astralis Syrah all day, by god you would. I mean, I would. The oak feels imperceptible, which I discover is adapted depending on the concentration of the year. This 2018 was matured in 40% new oak, and you wouldn’t know it. The tannins are chewy and pliable, and the fruit that resides within it is striking. A wine of poise. Clarity. Delicacy.

Wine Advocate (98)

The exquisite 2006 Syrah Piggott Range is more structured yet. Thick, dense, and tightly wound, all the components are there for future greatness. Only patience is required.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

The perfumed, spicy bouquet with red flowers and fruits doesn't prepare you for the intensity and piercing length of its beautifully balanced medium-bodied palate. This is a truly glorious wine that draws you back again and again to explore the wealth of red fruit flavours, and the majesty of its texture and structure.

Decanter (98)

Quiet, controlled with a spellbinding timbre. Neverending, and phenomenal in terms of its quality.

James Suckling (99)

Incredibly complex aromas of baking spices, fresh red fruit and a fine and elegant, floral edge, as well as red cherries, raspberries and red plums. This is phenomenal, so precise and concentrated with such detail and power, delivered with elegance and precision. The palate is super long. The best vintage made at Clonakilla to date! Perfection! Drink now, but better from 2026. Screw cap.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

Clarity and nuance, silky tannins, herb-strewn, full of life and character and nuance, a whole other level of Cabernet Sauvignon, reflecting this unusual site. Blue fruits dominate over the darker cassis, adding freshness and keeping the rich concentration at arms length until the layers build through the palate. Smoked oak on the finish but it is barely discernable against the depth of fruit and minerality. Love this. Harvest April 13 and 16, 3.96ph. Just under 1,900 bottles produced.

Decanter (97)

An incredible Chardonnay from Margaret River with layers of complexity and nuance. So many aromatic touches on the nose, salty lemon notes alongside apricot, peach and lime zest with buttery almond edges. These follow through on the palate with a satisfying creamy texture. Smooth and structured, weighty but not overpowering and with a vein of freshness and wet stone minerality that gives it such life and energy. Hard not to love this. A total production of 2,288 bottles produced in 2018 by owner-winemaker Will Berliner. Grapes are hand sorted and whole-bunch pressed directly into barrel. An atypically cool spring and summer with unprecedented frost meant low yields and a harvest that was two weeks later than unusual. Despite the challenges this is a powerful and precise wine that is great to drink now and will age.

Vinous (96)

This decadently delicious 2020 Chardonnay immediately impresses with explosive aromas of vanilla cream, florals and just-picked nectarines with fantastic aromatic weight and volume. Packed full of marzipan, nutty oak and apricot flavours with a voluptuous texture, there is a perfectly balanced core of tangy acidity which keeps the energy high. A long, ripe and detailed finish tops what is a stunning package.

Nestled in the rich Southern McLaren Vale region, the Coriole Lloyd Reserve Shiraz 2013 is an exquisite embodiment of Australian excellence. This pre-eminent Shiraz, crafted by prominent winemaker Coriole Vineyards, charms with a bold, full-bodied profile encapsulating intense fruit flavours dappled with notes of savoury spice and dark chocolate. Each grape is attentively selected from the oldest vineyard plantings, dating back to 1919, ensuring a superior quality yield. The meticulous fermentation process in open-top vessels, followed by ageing in French oak barrels, bestow a distinguished depth and complexity that leaves a lingering palate impression.

Bearing the name of the Lloyd family, who established Coriole in 1967, the Coriole Lloyd Reserve Shiraz 2013 carries a legacy mirrored in its striking character and robust structure. Unquestionably, it's a testament to Coriole’s enduring commitment to create wines that captivate with their elegance and remarkable drinking pleasure.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

81% cabernet sauvignon, 10% merlot, 6% cabernet franc, 3% malbec. Wild-fermented and matured for 18 months in French oak (40% new). The colour is faultless, as is the wine. It has waves of complexity, like one of Margaret River's surf breaks, changing shape as the luxuriant cassis swells on the mid-palate, then finishes with ripe, textured tannins as the wave goes on to crash on the shore. The overall ripeness is perfection.

James Suckling (99)

This is a superb edition of this revered, cabernet-based blend with such complete, seamless and elegant feel, yet there’s such depth of flavor, too. Aromas of fresh redcurrants, red and violet flowers, subtle spice, fresh earth, paper bark, fresh-picked thyme and sage, red berries and some cedary notes. The palate is stunning and has a brand of elegance with power that is found in only the greatest wines. Pristine mulberries, red plums, blueberries and red cherries sail through layers of fine tannin, into an unwaveringly long and vibrant finish. An exceptionally concentrated and convincing Diana Madeline release, this is one of their finest. A blend of 79% cabernet sauvignon, 10% merlot, 6% cabernet franc and 5% malbec. Delicious now, but his will bloom from 2028. Screw cap.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

87% Cabernet sauvignon, with 7/3/2/1% merlot/cabernet franc/malbec/petit verdot. Matured for 15 months in barrique, 45% new. Cassis and red licorice on the nose, bay and salt bush, too. The palate is salty and fine with layers upon layers of spice and texture. The tannins are like finely textured gills, stacked as delicately as the folds in a mushroom. The length of flavour unfurls and extends across the palate, taking so long to fade that this entire tasting note is possible off one sip. The rest are just for pleasure. Drink it now, or in 40+ years from now… both will be possible.

Halliday Wine Companion (95)

57% malbec, 37% petit verdot, 6% merlot, hand-picked on 11 Feb '17, when a total eclipse occurred, turning the moon red. Wild-fermented, matured for 9 months in French oak (10% new). It's a delectably juicy red berry wine with minimal interference from tannins, but will be no pushover as it ages.

Halliday Wine Companion (97)

The price of this wine reflects the piercing brilliance of the bouquet and, in particular, the palate. There is some residual sugar, but the acidity totally obscures it. If you buy it, keep some bottles for a minimum of 10 years, allowing the treasure trove of secondary flavours to be liberated.

Wine Advocate (91)

Displaying a similar color as well as personality and depth, the 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon Ashmead exhibits a more scorched/roasted character to its nose, sweeter, more pliable and open-knit flavors, and nearly as much aging potential as the cooler vintage conditions produced in 2002. A beautiful, full-throttle, gutsy Cabernet Sauvignon, it can be drunk now and over the next 10-12 years.

The Real Review (96)

Really pale and youthful in the glass with plenty of steely green hues. Slatey and minerally on the nose, there's also citrus blossom, lime zest and a touch of melon skin. Flavours are focused and precise, there's lashings of lemony, limey goodness, a lick of wet stone along with a bright and crunchy acidity that gives great drive and length to the wine. A super expression of riesling.

Wine Advocate (98)

Singed bush, eucalypt, campfire remains and black tea rise out of the glass of this 2019 Chardonnay. Beneath it all, there's struck match, salty reduction and layers of preserved lemon, brine and a hint of camphor. In the mouth, the wine forges a path across the palate, stopping for no man (or woman), and cascades off the back of the palate into a long abyss of endless flavor. It spools and spirals, and if it had a sound, it would fade slowly until it was hard to discern between sensation and memory. This is an utter pleasure to drink, to consider and to smell. With an inexhaustible length of flavor, it is immune to hyperbole. Drink it whenever you like to drink Chardonnay—for me, that's from 2023 onward.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

Pinot Noir of the Year. Named after the Applejack eucalypts that surround the vineyard, which was planted at Gladysdale in 1997 by Ray Guerin. Seven clones comprising 114, 115, MV6, D2V5, D5V15, Pommard and Abel. Whole bunches (40%) and 20–25% new French barriques. 2022 was a hard act to follow, but this superb wine gives it a shake. Exotic, aromatic and pure with its bouquet of wild strawberries, dark cherries, quince, spices and flowers. Densely packed, this saturates the palate, but, as always, it's light on its feet at the same time. Seamless tannins round out another benchmark for what's already a benchmark wine.

James Suckling (96)

Attractive aromas of cherries and strawberries with dried herbs, rose petals and dried blood orange. Medium-bodied with polished texture and ultra fine tannins. It’s so lively and electrified with a pure and ripe fruit character that offers an array of cocoa-dusted strawberries and savory undertones. It’s spicy and long. Delicious. Drink or hold. Screw cap.

Halliday Wine Companion (96)

At 420m Wombat Creek is the highest vineyard site in the Yarra Valley, with a gentle northeast-facing slope of volcanic red soil. The vinification sees the wine bottled by gravity, not fined and only coarse-filtered, as is the case with its siblings. Although the acidity is not adjusted (like its siblings), it feels softer and fruitier, pink grapefruit at work.

James Suckling (97)

There’s striking freshness of lemon and yellow grapefruit here with a chalky, stony, flinty edge. The fresh fruit carries subtly spicy oak nicely. There are grapefruit and fresh yellow-peach flavors in abundance. This carries energetic, acidity-fueled drive and delivers impressive balance, as well as length. So long and juicy. Drink or hold.

Halliday Wine Companion (93)

Deep colour; as befits the very complex blend, powerful and complex, yet retains suppleness through the array of red and blackcurrant fruit. Barossa Valley (48%)/Adelaide Hills (42%)/Coonawarra (10%).

Matthew Jukes (19)

This is a wine of outstanding refinement. Ben readily admits that the early vintages of Amon-Ra were supposed to shock international wine commentators with their scale and impact. They certainly achieved their aim, but Ben knew that Amon-Ra really needed ratcheting back and this vintage shows the results of his gradual finessing and adding of detail. Cooler and longer with beautiful balance, this is a wine which will be sure to impress all-comers as opposed to just lovers of massive Barrosan reds. Using 95% new French and 5% new American oak hogsheads this wine has swallowed this carpentry whole and it shimmers with refinement in the glass. It justifiably gains my highest ever score for this label.

Wine Advocate (98)

Certainly one of the best vintages of young Amon Ra I've ever tasted, the 2018 Amon Ra Shiraz is a stupendous effort. From old vines in the Ebenezer section of the northern Barossa, it starts off with a whirlwind of mocha, blackberry and dried spices, then actually gets more red-fruited as it sits in the glass. Full-bodied, rich and concentrated without being jammy or overdone, the wine finishes long and savory, framed by dusty tannins and mouthwatering black olives. Winemaker Ben Glaetzer compares 2018 to 2004 (which continues to drink well). Expect the 2018 to drink well young, but easily age through 2035, perhaps longer.