2025 Havilah Gamay

94 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

This 2025 Gamay won a slew of medals and trophies at the Tasmanian Wine Show in January, all of them well deserved. The wine looks impossibly vibrant—electric, in fact—and yet it has spicy tannins, an attractively chewy texture and exotic spices woven throughout. This has rose petals, star anise, some cracked pistachios, graphite, alpine herbs and shaved fennel. It is possessed of that salivating combination of eminently drinkable (immediately) and complex, enough to hold attention over the course of the bottle. It's excellent. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Most of the handpicked fruit is from the Coal Valley (85%), with the balance from the Three Wishes vineyard. The latter component is 100% whole-bunch, carbonic maceration, with three weeks on the skins. This was matured in seasoned oak. The Coal Valley fruit is later-picked due to the growing area, and the fruit is destemmed and whole-berry fermented. This was also matured in old oak for three months, until blending, racking and bottling.