97 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2022 The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz is so pretty—floral, red fruited and fine. This is a beautiful iteration of this wine. Ironically, there's a coastal freshness about it—kelp, brine, crushed shells—given it is nowhere near the coast. It's capacious and mineral and so fresh. The tannins are fine and neat, and the wine has incredible focus and line through the long finish. It's very impressive, potentially one of my favorite releases of this wine to date. It has wholly Barossa fruit this vintage. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under natural cork.
96 POINTS
Dave Brookes - Halliday Wine Companion
Yalumba's famous Signature cabernet sauvignon and shiraz blend has a strong pedigree when it comes to cellaring and the 2022 release will certainly carry on long into the future. The fruit density and purity here is impressive. Blackberry, Doris plum and black cherry tones, their flow elegant and graceful across the palate with hints of spice, cedar, tobacco, pencil shavings, roasting meats, dried herbs and olive tapenade. Fine-grained tannins are in abundance and there is an extended finish that rolls on and on. It's a super release.
96 POINTS
Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast
A nose-full of enticing aromas, from cedar and mocha to succulent, spice-dusted blackberry, with Cab's oh-so-distinctive pencil shavings character peaking its head up, too. Those satiny, juicy black and blue fruit flavors rush in on the palate, coating the tongue, tamed halfway through dusty, fine sandpapery tannins. This is an especially approachable, aromatic vintage of this top wine from a historic Barossa producer. While you could pop it in a decanter and serve with a slab of protein now, it should also age with intention for many decades.
Savory aromas of blackcurrants, cedar, tobacco leaves, ferrous earth and bitter chocolate. The palate is full-bodied with firmly framed tannins, a long, persisting finish and lingering notes of blackberries, blood plums and walnuts. A serious wine that is built to last for years in the bottle.
95 POINTS
Angus Hughson - Vinous
This beautifully composed 2022 The Signature delivers excellent fruit definition and youthful complexity, opening up with blackberry, blackcurrant and new leather lined with dried mint, buttressed by impressive oak. It has great overall shape with firm, structural tannins and compact yet powerful layers of flavors balanced and holding true over a finish of exceptional length.
94 POINTS
Ken Gargett - Winepilot
The Signature, always a tribute to a deserving contributor to Yalumba and/or the Australian wine industry, is probably Yalumba’s best known wine. The 2022, a superb vintage, is in honour of Paul Midolo, who is their Executive Director of Sales for Australia and New Zealand. As always, made by Kevin Glastonbury, himself the recipient of the 2019 Signature. The blend, all Barossa, is 51% Cabernet Sauvignon and 49% Shiraz. The vines average 52 years of age and the wine spent a year and a half maturing in a mix of new Hungarian oak hogsheads, French barriques and hogsheads (21%), with the remainder in older barriques and hogsheads, both Hungarian and French (for those wondering, Yalumba are one of the few wineries remaining in the world to have their own cooper; hence, such innovative oak treatment is not beyond them). Under cork. A very dark maroon, the nose is all about chocolate and mocha notes, aniseed, black cherries, smoked meats, blackberries, bay leaves, bacon fat and cloves. Rather silky on the palate, there is good oak integration proceeding well. There is good balance, bright acidity and impressive length. This release has perhaps a touch more elegance than some from the past, and it is all the better for it. An excellent Signature from a superb vintage, still youthful, this has at least ten to fifteen years ahead of it.
93 POINTS
David Sly - Decanter
The remarkable consistency of The Signature over decades stands as a testament to Yalumba’s ability to keep finding superb Cabernet in the Barossa each year, even when this variety has a notoriously fickle temperament in dry vintages. The low-cropping 2022 vintage provided intense flavours, giving this wine rich character and a stern demeanour. Uncharacteristically, it shows more assertive Shiraz personality in its youth, offering dark power and deep, grinding bass notes through the mid-palate. The comforting warmth of savoury-edged Barossa Cabernet Sauvignon remains a significant contributor however. Its sturdy tannin profile suggests it will change with age in the cellar, when its Cabernet influence is likely to make a rich savoury mid-palate come into bloom.
