Hickinbotham Clarendon Brooks Road Shiraz 2019 1500mL

95 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - Halliday Wine Companion

A blend of three distinctive blocks on loams, silt and clay. No whole bunch. Gently extracted by wetting the cap and racking/returning. Circa 20 days on skins. 6 months in puncheons. 6 more in foudres and a concrete egg. A corpulent wine, lush and full. Yet there is nothing jammy about it. Eclipsed by its Bordeaux varietal siblings perhaps, but as far as warm-climate shiraz goes, this is at the apex of the qualitative totem pole. Blue fruits, violet, anise, clove and pepper grind. Some salumi, too. But the tannins are this gorgeous wine's opus.

95 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

A broodier bottling than the more gregarious 2020, this vintage still offers oodles of concentrated dark fruit, a slightly charred veg note, toasty spice and a frame of fine, cola-like oak influence. Constructed for the long haul, with intensity and focus, a lift of acidity and muscular, chiseled tannins woven between the supple fruit and spice, this should continue to evolve until 2038, at least.

94 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

Deep, darkling purple/red colour, with a bouquet of wood-smoke and undergrowth. The wine is full-bodied and somewhat subdued in its fruit expression while the tannins are very abundant and quite firm, leaving a determined grip at the finish. Latent cherry and plum. A big, generous, solidly built shiraz that will reward cellaring.

94 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

What’s clear from the outset is that this tastes markedly different from the cabernet, and from the merlot. Which is a good start. There’s a plushness to the fruit here and beautiful integration of mocha-like oak. It puts the wine into swish territory straight up. Dark chocolate, rich plum, kirsch, woodsmoke and foresty herb notes all contribute, pretty much in that order, before tannin ripples on through. This is warm and rich, unashamedly, but it feels controlled and deliberate. It’s top notch quality, no doubting it.