Hickinbotham The Revivalist Merlot 2022

95 POINTS

Shanteh Wale - Winepilot

Hand picked, destemmed and gently crushed, basket pressed, 16 days on skins and matured in French oak barriques of which 50% was new for 12 months. There is Merlot and then there is MERLOT, a wine with heart and soul and a gentleness guiding pressure of oak. This has it all in spades and then some. Black cherries, carob and stewed plums. There are Rosella flowers and a ground black sesame paste. Some bayleaf and thistle. Acidity walks an ascending line without artifact and the wine manages that leisurely form that only merlot can provide. Satisfying, flavour and harmonious. Some powdery tannins mean this will age another 4-5 years gracefully. Beef and black bean stir fry would set this off nicely.

95 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

From two blocks planed in 1976 and 1989. Crushed fruit, ambient ferment, with 16 days on skins; matured in French barriques (60% new) and foudre for 12 months. Merlot has had a tough trot in this country, but Californian winemaker Chris Carpenter is well schooled in the ways of the grape. This harnesses a more rounded fruit profile, but also with proper linear tannins and drive. It’s a relatively elegant expression, though with a depth of plum and mulberry, subtle florals, graphite, roasted hazelnut and a balanced gloss of classy oak.

94 POINTS

Winepilot

If Merlot has a theme tune, it would be something like “What the World Needs Now is Love”. Bacharach is a classic for good reason, as is Merlot, and it’s time we give this grape a little more love after the beating it took from Sideways fame. Juicy, deep fruited and inviting, this heady mix of ripe berries and skin spice is a perfumed temptation. Cedary oak is there, but playing a gentle background beat on the nose, and the palate is firmly structured with rather grippy tannins at first (16 days on skins and 50% new oak, with light pressings in free-run juice), but softening their attitude as the wine flows through the palate. There’s plenty to enjoy here, and the bolstered structure will help turn the heads of those hardened “anything but Merlot” folk. With lifted acidity, grippy tannins and a plush, charry fruit profile, this is made to enjoy with a top-notch steak, cooked over flames. By Cassandra Charlick

93 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2022 The Revivalist Merlot leads with concentrated cocoa and raspberry, allspice, bramble and roasted fennel seeds. This is softly textured on the palate, and while it flirts with descriptors like "plump," it refrains from being so as it moves across the tongue. This is an elegant wine, one that I bet will age gracefully. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

93 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

Good wine, excellent flavour, perhaps a little too firm through the finish but long term it should serve the wine well. Mulberry, undergrowth, pure ripe plums, cloves and smoked meat notes drive a characterful, cool-edged palate with ample light-and-shade.

92 POINTS

Ned Goodwin - JamesSuckling.com

A rich, plusher expression of merlot, at least in an Australian context. Tomato leaves, Damson plums and ferrous tannins directing solid length.

92 POINTS

Angus Hughson - Vinous

The 2022 Merlot The Revivalist is muscular in style, offering dense and punchy aromas of blackberry compote, black olive and cedar with a serious frame of oak. It is ripe, rich and heavyset, with oak tannins and jammy fruit delivering a long, strong finish that lacks delicacy.