MMAD Shiraz 2023

97 POINTS

Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion

The third year, and a notably long and cool season. The process here, in general, is fermentation in concrete and oak with a portion of whole bunch, though mostly destemmed, then élevage in older, larger French oak. There’s a little reduction up front but that settles, revealing a moodily scented wine, saline with blackberry pastille, olive, ground cacao nibs, violet and lavender, black cherry, star anise, clove, pepper and mace. It’s a complex wine, more medium in stature, with significant Rhône echoes. Saint-Joseph comes to mind, but this is a wine of site and there’s nothing imitative about the elaboration. Another excellent release; maybe less intense than the '22, but just so detailed.

97 POINTS

Jeni Port - Winepilot

The accompanying wine notes tell of the latest and coolest vintage yet for this vineyard, but the upshot was a wide picking window combined with small, bunches and intense fruit flavours. The result is an absolute stunner of a wine, boasting a layer of what can only – and perhaps a little too lazily – be described as cool climate-inspired spiciness. It’s more inherent than a flat-out feature and to be fair was present in the ’22 release, one ingredient in a complex range of scents and flavours that take in black cherry, plum, cassis with lifted aromatics in rose and pressed flowers and dusty cacao, bitter chocolate and, yes, spices with anise and pepper in the lead. Fruit, oak, tannins and spice are packed tight, an intense youngster that will age a beaut. In the meantime, it’s bright, it dances, it weaves, it’s a seamless engaging young Shiraz of the highest quality.

96 POINTS

Shanteh Wale - Winepilot

There is so much to love here in a wine that has very swifty gained a following for those that adore both McLaren Vales famed Blewitt Springs and the terroir based wines of the Rhone. It doesn’t emulate or replicate but instead zeros in on the blue fruited, blackberry and lavender tones with gusto whilst serving up all the savoury herbs of a tapas platter. Sandy tannins and so much drinkability – it’s hard to put down. There is a salted licorice note with fine lines of trilling acidity. The cool vintage gives this wine its finesse and it’s a real beauty..once again. A lovely wine for Caponata on crusty sourdough toast. Drink now or will cellar well for 6-8 years.

92 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2023 Shiraz is reductive upon opening, and this subtly pervades the palate even 20 minutes later. However, the tannins that reside there are finely milled and like graphite, while the fruit is supple, slinky and spiced—the perfect ode to McLaren Vale if ever there was one. A cool wet season was 2023, and here it has produced a finer, lighter iteration of this wine. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

90 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

This is an interesting wine, and I’ll also be interested to read what CM and/or MB think of it when/if they open one. This is from 1941 plantings. It opens quite reductive and sullen, which makes the wine seem a bit hard and ungiving, though given some time, it’s beginning to loosen up somewhat. And all this is fine if you are cellaring it, but if ordering at a restaurant, well it could perhaps present an issue? It’s meaty, spicy and peppery, quite sappy, with a sour blueberry/cherry flavour, tannin has a bit of grainy graphite character and grip, which is good, and the finish has some blood orange tang, iodine, and a bergamot tea thing happening. Quite twiggy and hard is the impression, and kind of stoic. It’s tightly coiled, and I can sense quality underneath, though it’s kind of hard to love. Also, as a result, quite hard to rate. All I can say is it’s not a wine for now, and maybe not one for me. Others, of course, will have their own opinion.