2022 Murdoch Hill Orion Syrah

98 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - Halliday's Wine Companion

It's not often that such a detailed, delicate wine also comes with such depth. Indeed, this is a wine of gravitas. It's tight, smoky, ripped with mescal-like notes, peppery and just generally savoury, but there's also a gorgeous purr of berried fruit, ripe and settled. Along with all those spicy treble notes there's a good pound of mid-range bass. We're in classic beauty territory, balanced and complete. Give this wine some air; it needs it. And prepare to be mesmerised.

95 POINTS

Stuart Knox - The Real Review

Deep and dense ruby core with purple glints at the rim. Deeply fragrant with mulberry, nori, and pepper spice aromas. Medium bodied with dark fruits, black slate and nori flavours flowing through a tightly wound core. Tannins are fine-grained but powerful and they ensure the line and length is prodigious. Has many years ahead of it.

95 POINTS

James Suckling

This is exceptional cool climate syrah, reeling off kelp, black cherries, tapenade, cloves and violets across a long line of flavor, measured intensity and sumptuous tannins, almost sooty and rock-face mineral of feel. Mid-weighted and savory, albeit, with plenty of power. A clench of reduction at the finish to give it just a little more tension. A wine for Northern Rhone lovers seeking a different form of transcendence. Drink or hold.