2022 Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz

98 POINTS

Toni Paterson MW - Halliday Wine Companion

This is an ultra-stylish, well-made Graveyard with tightly coiled fruit and a serious demeanour. In fact, it would be easy to miss its greatness, especially alongside riper styles, if one wasn't paying attention. Quiet and reserved with a youthful crimson hue, the fruit is tensioned within an intricate matrix of acidity and tannin. With aeration, one sees exotic black cherry characters nestled within a dense, sculpted, savoury palate. It's a slender, majestic shiraz that has grace and restrained power. It will be an extremely long-living wine, and I can't wait to see how it transforms with time. One for the future.

96 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz no longer sees any new oak. It was once matured in a mix of both French and American oak, all new, but it no longer sees any American, and it’s now all one-year-old. We’re not talking neutral oak, it should be noted. One-year-old oak still imparts flavour. Second-fill oak though is like a cricket bat that’s been gently knocked in; it’s ready to go. I’ve written about Graveyard and Brokenwood a few times over the years, none of which articles are especially good. I added new content and combined a couple of these articles into a new one recently: published – here – if you’re interested. This is a pretty special wine. It feels distinctively Hunter but it’s the length of the finish that is the characteristic of note. It’s a gently stringy wine, and feels/tastes slightly reductive, and is infused with herbs, but in pure flavour terms this wine is defined by musk characters pushing into earth, spice and a pool of perfectly ripened cherry-plum. It’s in the wine’s tannin profile, so carefully crafted, where strings of herbs and earth feel dry and drawn out, that the light starts to really shine on this wine’s quality. Tannin pulls complex flavour with it, and sets out for a long distant line. 2022 was a cool, wet year in the Hunter. When you taste this wine, you do indeed sense the season, it’s not a “you’d never know” wine. It turns out, that’s a good thing.

94 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2022 Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz has inflections of Campari, blood orange and hints of Earl Grey tea; it is verdant, in its way. All of the fruit here is destemmed, so none of the descriptors are subtle hints at whole bunch. 2022 was a cooler year, and the wine looks exotic and citrus and light. The tannins are fine but firm—in a pumice-stone way. This is a classic, medium-bodied red here, and I think it's going to make a really beautiful old wine. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

92 POINTS

2024 - Decanter World Wine Awards

Lifted and perfumed, with hints of red cherry and plum leading to a palate pink peppercorn, tobacco and salted plum. Award: Silver - DWWA 2024