Peter Lehmann Masterson Shiraz 2015 1500ml

98 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

(1500ml) The colour is tremendously deep and bright, and the wine has great concentration and power. It's very dense and fleshy-textured, with lots of mocha/chocolate and black fruit aromas. Colossal depth of flavour, but it's not just about concentration, it also has great balance and complexity. It could mature happily for 50 years in a good cellar. (1000 magnums bottled to commemorate the company's 40th anniversary. From a single vineyard in the Moppa district, aged 3 years in a 2, 500-litre foudre)

97 POINTS

James Halliday - Halliday Wine Companion

From a single vineyard in Moppa, the grapes crushed to a small fermenter with 14 days on skins, pressed to French hogsheads for mlf, then to a 2500l oval foudre for 36 months after strict barrel selection. It is a full-bodied shiraz of excellent quality, harmony and balance perfectly expressed via seamless fruit, oak and tannin contributions. Only available in magnum.

97 POINTS

Dave Brookes - Halliday Wine Companion

When composing this, the icon wine in the Peter Lehmann stable, the winemaking team worked their way through 130 individual parcels of wine; whittling the contenders down to the single best. This year, shiraz from Mike McCarthy's block in Bethany got the nod, and it marks the second release after the inaugural 2015 Masterson. Matured for 40 months in foudre. Deep crimson in the glass with purely defined blackberry and macerated satsuma plum fruits, layers of baking spices and vanillin oak suffusing over the deep, ripe fruit. Hints of violets, dark chocolate, turned Barossan earth, chocolate bullets, roasting meats, panforte and olive tapenade. A contemporary take on a classic regional wine style, the Masterson shows all the elegance and grace you'd expect from a top-flight wine with melt-in-the-mouth tannins, fine and compact, retreating back into the impressive fruit profile. Incredibly fresh, too, with plenty of energy to go along with all that latent horsepower. No doubt at all that this will cellar beautifully. 2000 bottles produced.

96 POINTS

James Suckling

This is an inaugural release of the best of vintage shiraz parcel from a single plot in Moppa that was aged in a single 2,500 liter foudre and only released in magnum. The name honors Peter Lehmann’s original company name when he started in 1979. The depth of fruit here is impressive with ripe plums, blackberries, cedar, some fresh leather and spicy, earthy notes, too. This is very complex, pristine and powerful shiraz on the palate with intense blackberry flavor. Graphite and dark-stone notes, too. Carries so long and intense with unwavering line and length of tannin. Firm and balanced. Better after 2025.

95 POINTS

Joe Czerwinski - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

Bottled only in magnum (1,400 of them, all under cork), the 2015 Masterson Shiraz is a single-vineyard wine sourced from the Hammerling Vineyard in northern Barossa's Moppa subregion. The vineyard was only planted in 1991, yet it has produced a wine that the Lehmannn team feels is the best that they could make. The nose is lifted, with a slightly minty-peppery note accenting dark berry fruit. On the palate, it's full-bodied yet restrained and tight, with a distinct cedary overlay of French oak (the wine aged in a new French oak foudre), velvety but firm tannins and a long, slightly grainy finish tinged with plum and mocha. Future vintages, which may come from other fruit sources, will also be available in 750-milliliter bottles.

93 POINTS

Tyson Stelzer - Halliday Wine Companion

From vines in Moppa, dating from 1964. Matured 36 months in 100% new French oak barrels and one 2500L oval foudre. Lehmann's recent foray into the rarefied air of uber-premium Barossa shiraz comes in a massive, cork-sealed, waxed bottle at ten times the price of Stonewell. New French oak dominates aroma, flavour and structure, with nutty, woody character quashing black-fruit expression and making for a hard, splintery oak finish that leaves fruit gasping for air. It screams out for time, certainly, but will that fruit ever emerge from its oak cage? A screw cap would have improved its chances. Proof that bigger is not indeed better.