What happens when you take a talented young winemaker and get them to tackle the very traditional place/variety combination of Heathcote shiraz? You get something like this – a joyously rich, dark-fruited and gently spicy shiraz that cleverly talks to Australian winemaking tradition while blazing its own trail.
This is a gorgeously sumptuous wine – dense and comforting, without veering into the realm of the over-ripe or over-oaked. The nose has a bewitching Black Forest cake vibe about it, full of blood plums, blackberry, kirsch-soaked cherries, cacao nib and a hint of exotic tonka bean character that draws you back for another sniff (and another …). Those characteristics come through on the palate, alongside a tiny little hint of minty eucalyptus – a strangely comforting nod towards the eucalypt-inflected Australian red wines of yore, without seeking to emulate the “koala juice” flavour that sometimes dominated them. This is more medium-bodied than rich, with a bright acidity that feels soft-focus, a floodlight rather than a laser beam. The tannins here are soft and velvety, despite the wine’s relative youth – plush, but not polished to a sheen by the patina of age. You wouldn’t be able to guess its alcohol volume in a blind tasting – it doesn’t feel at all hot or overdone. This is a smart, modern take on an old-school style of shiraz, opulent without being overbearing, and the perfect wine to take to your parents’ place next time you’d like to bridge some generational gaps.
Shiraz dominates the Australian wine industry, accounting for nearly a third of this country’s vines. The grape’s traditional home is in France’s Northern Rhône, with wines that combine elegance and power, while Australia is perhaps best known for the muscular styles from warmer areas. Today, drinkers of Australian shiraz are spoilt for choice with expressions ranging from the elegant and spicy to the monumental.
Heathcote is rugged country, a tinder-dry landscape of rusty iron-rich soils littered with sculpturally stacked granitic boulders. It’s mythical territory, ancient land, and home to some of the world’s oldest viticultural soils. But as a wine region, it is a relatively young one, which saw an explosion of growth in the 1990s. Shiraz led the charge, and it became Victoria’s answer to the Barossa or McLaren Vale, producing wines of significant power. But Heathcote is very different to both those places, and it is not that easily defined. Today, shiraz finds myriad expressions, and many other varieties are taking a firm grip, especially those suited to dry and warm climes.
Most of the wood used in wine barrels comes from the oak tree. Two species are preferred, Quercus robur, aka French or European oak, and Quercus alba, aka American oak. The difference between these two types of oak is that the American variety grows much faster and is consequently more porous, therefore (usually) imparting more wood flavour into the wine. As with other wine topics, the devil here is in the detail, with winemakers able to wax lyrical about their favourite cooperages, toast levels, and wood sources. A vogue for very obviously oaked wines in the 1990s and 2000s gave rise to a backlash against oak use, but now winemakers are increasingly using oak as judiciously as skilled chefs use salt – as seasoning, not as the main flavour.
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