Hickinbotham Clarendon The Peake Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2020 1500mL

97 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - Halliday Wine Companion

Sourced from the contoured quilt of estate vines, a confluence of silts, loams and ferrous outcrops. A traditional blend of the finest performing blocks and best barrels (50% new). A nose tingling with a visceral energy, such is the mineral-clad spine to this wine. Rich and powerful, to be sure, as the sweetness of shiraz and its blue-fruit aspersions meander across cabernet's bones of finely tuned tannins, dried herb and cedar-oak cladding. Yet the overall effect is one of umami warmth, savoury depth and immense potential. This is an iconic wine and deservedly so.

94 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

A glossy, vanilla-and-spiced oak sentinel stands guard over this Cab-Shiraz blend from a top McLaren Vale vineyard. It's not wholly intrusive, but it makes itself known, as do the characteristics of supple dark berry fruit and chocolate with undertones of mint and spice. The palate is equally rich and broad shouldered, with plump, concentrated fruit and spicy, powerful but well-placed tannins. An infant now, it should age gracefully and slowly. Drink 2024 until well into the 2030s.

94 POINTS

Angus Hughson - Vinous

A fascinating Cabernet/Shiraz blend, the 2020 The Peake comes from some of the highest vineyards in McLaren Vale. This wine offers excellent purity with blackberry, cassis and clove-scented fruits backed by a generous serving of high-quality oak. A beautifully vibrant palate follows, radiating with dark berry fruits that are kept in check by manicured tannins and deliver a long, flowing finish.

93 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

An almost 50-50 blend of Cab and Shiraz, this is a big but balanced and perfumed bottling with heady aromas of blueberry and blackberry preserves, savory spice and licorice. There's a charred veg nuance, like the pan scrapings of a vegetable roast, with a subtle coating of sweet toasty oak. The rich palate is buoyed by crunchy acidity and framed in powerful but fine, talc-like tannins. Oak is better tucked here. This is a polished, mouthcoating Cab that needs serious protein if drinking now, but that should cellar until 2040 or longer.