Sidewood Mappinga Shiraz 2018

96 POINTS

Tony Love - Halliday Wine Companion

A best barrel selection from all 3 estate vineyards, their multiple parcels and all 12 clones. Some whole bunches, but mostly focused on a whole-berry carbonic-maceration approach, before maturing for 18 months in French barrels, 35% new. Finely sculpted, with sophisticated balance of flavour and structure, delicious concentration of blacker fruits and berries, with fresh acidity, lip-smacking tannins, and white-pepper-led spices. Ticks all the boxes.

96 POINTS

Sam Kim - Wine Orbit

Wonderfully styled and seductively complex, showing blackberry, toasted spice, cedar and dried herb notes on the nose, leading to a concentrated palate displaying excellent weight and refined texture wonderfully framed by polished tannins, finishing impressively long and seamless.

95 POINTS

Ray Jordan - Winepilot

Like most of Australia, 2018 was a very good year in the Adelaide Hills and it’s captured beautifully in this Shiraz. Sure, it’s a cool climate version, but there is so much locked away inside its amply proportioned and balanced palate. Dark chocolate, spicy plum, pepper and blackberry all reveal themselves on a dense yet smoothly integrated palate. Stylish and suave.

93 POINTS

Joe Czerwinski - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2018 Mappinga Shiraz ratchets up the intensity relative to the 2017, adding extra layers of boysenberry and blackberry fruit to its predecessor's plum, cracked pepper and wintergreen notes. Of course, there's a substantial amount of smoky, campfire-like accents from the 35% new French oak used in the élevage, but the oak is far from dominating in this superb vintage. Medium to full-bodied, expansive and rich on the palate, with a long, velvety finish, this wine should drink well for at least a decade.

93 POINTS

2020 - Decanter World Wine Awards

Inviting creamy vanilla, violet, cinnamon, strawberry and dark plum lead on to bilberry, loganberry and creamy new oak. Award: Silver - DWWA 2020

92 POINTS

2021 - Decanter World Wine Awards

Floral, ripe black fruit and peppery nose. Rich in the mouth with restrained black fruit, lots of fresh acidity and spicy complexity. Refreshing, moderate finish. Award: Silver - DWWA 2021

91 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

Released or at least sent out as samples as a five-year-old. There’s nothing tired about this wine; it feels younger than five years. It’s dense, black cherried, salty, well balanced, has a bit more grunt than you might expect of an Adelaide Hills red wine, and feels serious from start to finish. There are game notes here too, and toast notes, and flings of herbs, both dried and green. It’s interesting for sure, if a bit unyielding. It could well be in a stage; it feels as though it checked its charm at the door. And yet for complexity, weight, balance and structure it has it all going on.