World Wine – 97 Points - Jane Skilton MW

World Wine – 96 Points + Gold (Decanter World Wine Awards 2023)

James Halliday – "If Pat Carmody can’t make great shiraz, then we should all shut up shop. He’s only been doing so at Craiglee for, oh, about 40-plus years. There's a DNA imprint to this, with a whorl of dark fruit, warm spices shot through, cedary oak and wafts of red roses. Very savoury though, fuller bodied with archetypal Craiglee tannins supple, shapely and ripe. Yes, a lovely wine made by a legend." (Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion)

The Wine Front – Biodynamic farmed from a single vineyard on the Paxton estate. Grows up in French and American oak barrels. Paxton have been a leading light in showing biodynamic (certified) viticulture can be done to scale, well. Inky, deep, throaty red of hearty, dark fruit character, all inky cassis and choc-berry, liquid spice, fat tannins. A juicy, fleshy, plush flow of espresso tinged plummy fruit, gritty, savouriness to close. This is a big, bold red of warming character and density. Touch of warmth in the mix. It’s done pretty well for its style.

James Halliday – Biodynamic-grown fruit, open-fermented, matured in French and American barriques for 18 months. A celebrated McLaren Vale single vineyard wine, effortlessly providing a deep well of black fruits and fine-grained tannins, the oak a positive contributor, not a rabble rouser.

World Wine – Chocolate, dried plum and anise notes are juicy and bursting with blackberry accents. Balanced and smooth, especially on the finish. Drink now through 2026.

James Halliday – A selection of the best estate-grown chardonnay, with only 400 dozen made, winemaking much the same as its junior sibling. While retaining freshness and precision, the fruit here is more juicy and polished, not quite as angular.

James Halliday – “This is a beautiful wine, its aroma, its palate, its weight, its varietal and regional expression giving rise to a continuous stream of velvety pleasure. Flawless”

James Halliday – A blend of three distinctive blocks on loams, silt and clay. No whole bunch. Gently extracted by wetting the cap and racking/returning. Circa 20 days on skins. 6 months in puncheons. 6 more in foudres and a concrete egg. A corpulent wine, lush and full. Yet there is nothing jammy about it. Eclipsed by its Bordeaux varietal siblings perhaps, but as far as warm-climate shiraz goes, this is at the apex of the qualitative totem pole. Blue fruits, violet, anise, clove and pepper grind. Some salumi, too. But the tannins are this gorgeous wine’s opus. - Ned Goodwin MW, James Halliday Wine Companion 2022, 13 August, 2021, 95 Points

James Halliday – Very old, low-yielding vines (circa 1900), all on sandy soils. Crushed and cold soaked for a couple of days. A short, open-topped fermentation is buttressed by oak, French and American, where the wine spends a lengthy period. A brooding, take-no-prisoners sort of expression that harks back to wines of yore. Mocha, vanilla, espresso and bourbon scents mask dark cherry, anise, clove and violet. At least at this nascent stage. Yet there is nothing harsh or edgy about this. The power, excess and underlying fruit fold into a well-polished package. Ned Goodwin MW Published 13 August 2021

The Wine Front –