2021 Yangarra Ironheart Shiraz

97 POINTS

Ray Jordan - Winepilot

A rich and opulent Shiraz which has been made without the addition of pressings. It’s an approach to retain the life and effortlessness of the fruit while losing nothing in fruit power and intensity. Has slightly more oak than others yet the fruit intensity and concentration laps it up with ease. Grainy minerally mouth feel of perfect balance.

96 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - JamesSuckling.com

This wine has a fuller body and more obvious extract than its elegant King's Wood sibling. Firmer tannins, too. There are heady aromas of violets, licorice, charcuterie and boysenberries. There is a hint of reduction and barrel-ferment smokiness marking the mid-palate, but this is a classy, polished shiraz with immense flavors and personality. It is clearly built for the mid-term cellar. In '22 this shiraz may well be the superior variety from this site. From biodynamically grown grapes. Drinkable now, but best from 2027.

96 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

Fermented with 25% whole bunches; matured in French puncheons for seven months (35% new), then transferred to Austrian and French foudre for 12 months. The sandy ironstone soil is the key driver here, with a lilting fragrance combined with rocky ferrous notes, blackberry, blueberry, tar, tapenade, anise, iodine and a briary herbal complexity. Oak is well integrated, though more time is needed to cohere in general, as this is fashioned to age, and it will do so impressively.

96 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2021 Ironheart Shiraz aromatically speaks of its élevage in that the oak exudes a toasty, spiced malt-biscuit character that is wholly pleasing and enticing yet present. In the mouth, the fruit proves it is more than a match for its vessel; black pudding and pan drippings, blackberry coulis, dark cherries, squid ink and salted licorice cascade across a tannic foundation that is all about cocoa and drinking chocolate. This is both sybaritic and yet a little edgy: the whole-bunch component—25% this year—emphasizes the rachis of tannin in the mouth. The wine undulates and flows, and it is extraordinarily long through the finish. Not only can you taste the wine, you can feel it too; it is chewy and enveloping. I'd hold off from drinking this for some time; it is fresh and ready now, for sure, but the structure and length of flavor tell us that this will have a long and storied future ahead of it.

96 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

Woven between the fresh dark cherry and blackcurrant fruit is something more meaty and ferrous, with warm pavement, olive tapenade and a bouquet garni of herbs. The palate is still fairly tightly wound, keeping cards close to the chest while still offering lovely freshness, satiny texture, supple fruit and fine-grained tannins that set this up for lovely evolution in the bottle over the next several decades.

95 POINTS

Stuart Knox - The Real Review

Intense and deep ruby with a rich purple rim. Mulberry, black pepper and nori aromatics. Weighty and powerful with intense blue fruits wrapped by fine gravel tannins that accentuate dark minerality and black spice notes. Very long and focused right to the end, a hint of acidity lifts and fans out the finish. Serious gear this.

94 POINTS

David Sly - Decanter

Restraint is the keyword here. The influence of old vine muscle and rich ironstone terroir is played down in a rich but lithe wine that is sinewy, yet powerful. Fermented on skins for 21 days, it plumbs especially dark fruit tones, like a cello bowing its low notes long and hard, but the persistence of these dark blackberry and black plum flavours is what grabs you. It’s surprisingly modest for such a powerfully framed wine.

91 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

35% new oak. Hand-picked from our vineyard at the northern edge of McLaren Vale. Anyway, I’m wondering why the 2022 Old Vine Grenache has not been sent in for review, given we reviewed the 2021 (and very good!) release in November 2022. A very sweet and black fruited wine, truffle and tobacco, blackcurrant pastille. It’s medium to full-bodied, a whole lot of sweet black fruit, silty tannin, but carries so much of that opulent 2021 vintage character,that maybe, you might say, that it’s too much of a good thing. Blackcurrant, more overt truffle-like sweetness, but you know, good wine, though kind of warm in alcohol too. Maybe a little young, but it’s a LOT of wine as at now.