98 POINTS
Shanteh Wale - Winepilot
The High Sands block is the highest section of the 1946 bush vine plantings. Destemmed and 50% whole berries restained. Fermented in Clayver ceramic eggs and 1 stainless steel fermenter for 30 days. Matured on lees in seasoned Austrian puncheons and ceramic as well. Plucked blueberries, wild raspberries and pomegranate seeds. Crushed poppy seed, rambutan and ruby grapefruit oil. There is a sandy, clay like mineral tone with Banksia and stripped paperbark. The wine swirls and dances on the palate like a Flamenco skirt, delivering all the promises in the aromas to every inch of your palate. The malleable tension between succulent acidity and fine powdery tannins, is where the wine sings. This is upbeat and gleeful sipping from first till the last drop, you’ll notice because you’ll be devastated when it’s finished. Worthy of its reputation and asking price for this is spectacular Grenache. This wine will go places in your cellar, in 5, 8 or 12 years onwards. Try some slices of Iberico pork and savour life.
98 POINTS
Ray Jordan - Winepilot
One of Australia’s greatest Grenache that comes from the highest part of the ’46 planted bush vines. A combination of ceramic eggs and Austrian puncheons are used before the final blending and no pressings are included. So you are getting Grenache in its purest and most deliciously appealing form. Bright red fruits on the nose cascade through to a palate brimming with bright fruits. A delightfully friendly palate bursting with energy and vibrancy through to a very long finish. A benchmark for this variety.
98 POINTS
Marcus Ellis - Halliday Wine Companion
This year, Pete Fraser will launch the High Sands, Ovitelli and Hickinbotham together, giving a better chance to view the connectivity. Well, there is certainly a theme in the '23s. A degree of alcohol less, lower colour and a commanding, yet incredibly fine, structural framework. This is a very different High Sands, a reflection of the cool year, but also an evolving direction, leaning into elegance, soaring fragrance and savoury tension. Red cherry, tart raspberry, intensely floral, swirling with North African spices, musk and orange peel. The palate is coiled at this stage, but the fruit has flex and will bloom with time in bottle, radiating out from the core of mineral-feeling tannin and skein of vigorous acidity. This is truly magnificent now, but the future is one of dazzling possibility.
97 POINTS
Tom Kline - Winepilot
100% Grenache sourced from Black 31 at 210 elevation – the highest section of the 1946 planted bush vine Grenache, which also has the deepest sandy soils. Here we have the pinnacle Grenache release from Yangarra. It’s perhaps a comparatively diaphanous release in the context of High Sands, though not to a fault. This is a classy wine of dimension, depth and endless character that will reward mightily with time in cellar. The depth to the aromas is instantly compelling while also wonderfully restrained – warm sand and mulch notes quickly make way for white pepper, cranberry, red cherry and raspberry compote. A swirl of the glass accentuates a fine mineral detail along with floral musk, brown spice and a lurking orange peel tang. This is at once savoury and pretty, demure and charming – such is its sophistication. The palate is intense but furled, sitting high in the mouth with red fruits aplenty while firm, febrile tannins provide anchor. Raspberry, red apple, cherry pit minerality, red rose, cranberry and orange peel are pulled into a corset of those stacked and powdery nebbiolo-like tannins which frame it all up and draw the wine to wonderful, poised length. Yangarra’s trajectory with this grape in this region is stratospheric. That’s not opinion—it’s fact.
97 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2023 High Sands Grenache is a magnificent wine. It routinely is, and nothing dulls the excitement of looking at the new vintage each year. While the Ovitelli and Clarendon Grenaches see no oak—they are exclusively in ceramic egg and amphorae—this High Sands does see a small percentage of older thick-stave Austrian puncheons, the effect of which is profound on the wine. It opens up the weave of the tannins and somehow exposes the length of flavor. The texture on the palate is gritty and sandy and yet fine, while the flavors of raspberry, watermelon, pink peppercorn, cold tea, anise and rose petals ooze from every juncture. I like this so much. It's one of the very greatest Grenaches in Australia, and it's looking so restrained in this cool/wet vintage. Interestingly, the decision was made to release this vintage prior to the more tannic 2022, for those wondering where that review is—something for us all to look forward to. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
The High Sands vineyard is a beautiful, "open-to-the-sky" bush-vine vineyard that was planted in 1946. The Block 31 section, where the fruit for this wine is sourced from, is 1.7 hectares and sits on the cap of the gentle hill upon which the vines are planted. This is where the deepest deposit of sandy soil is.
97 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
I won't re-review this 2023 High Sands Grenache, as I have only just published its score and note at the end of May 2025, but for the purpose of context in this vertical of 2012–2024, the wine exudes all the fragrant perfume of the 2023 vintage. I like the 2023s more and more, and I find them to be fine, firm, fragrant and finessed. What I will say is that perhaps I undercooked the potential drinking window, which via this vertical has now revealed itself to be around the 30-year mark. This, in the trio of cold vintages (2011, 2017, 2023), is my preferred vintage by a margin. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
The nose is deeply perfumed, with brooding aromas of mulberries, mocha, dried herbs and tea leaves. The palate is medium- to full-bodied with finely integrated tannins and focused acidity, giving notes of raspberries, cassia bark, potpourri and spices. Very complex and tightly wound, with real purity of fruit.
95 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
There’s tension to this wine, red and blue berried fruits, spice notes, chalk, a general lightness, a general insistence. The floral characters have that slightly – attractive – decayed aspect, brightened as they are by notes of musk-sticks-dipped-quickly-into the pool of red cherry. There’s a general high drinkability to this wine, especially when you first open it, but as it breathes it tightens, impressively. Given that this wine sits on the lighter or more elegant side of the ledger this comment might sound strange, but: there’s an impression of saturation to this wine, as in, the red berried fruit flavours feel saturated in flowers, sweet spices and sweet woods. It’s a very beautiful wine.
