Thomas Wines Sweetwater Ridge Shiraz 2022

Thomas Wines put Sweetwater Vineyard on the map. Unfortunately, in 2016, the vineyard was sold, and in 2021, Thomas made the difficult decision not to renew his contract with the new owners. Fortunately, he had a contingency plan; in 2017, he had begun purchasing fruit from the adjacent, independently owned and operated Ridgeview Estate. “It’s a fantastic vineyard,” he told us. “The fruit has a lovely floral complexity among the red and blue fruits.” The fruit went into Thomas’s mailing list-exclusive Belford Shiraz until 2022, when Thomas felt ready to siphon it off to the Sweetwater label. In recognition, the wine’s name has been updated to Sweetwater Ridge.

Located in the Belford subregion of the Lower Hunter Valley, the old vines were planted in 1998 and are deep-rooted in the signature red/brown loam over limestone soils of the region. Thomas’s steeply sloped block faces east, providing some protection from the hot afternoon sun. Picked in mid-February, the fruit fermented as whole berries and was pressed to a selection of new, one-, two- and three-year-old French hogsheads. After 13 months’ maturation, the very best barrels were selected and blended before a further 11 months resting in bottle in readiness for release.