Dalwhinnie ‘The Pinnacle’ Shiraz 2021

97 POINTS - Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
"The 2021 The Pinnacle Shiraz leads with Earl Grey tea and blood orange, raspberry pip, blackberry jam and tobacco, with graphite, mineral effusion/fan through the middle palate and layers of texture that encompass pockets of flavor. This is a super wine. It has wet earth, petrichor, ductile tannin and everything good and earth-derived. 100% destemmed."

The Pinnacle vineyard is the highest, steepest site on the estate.  Planted in the early 1990’s, it is the site with the most quartz (like, football-sized quartz) running through the soil.  It is the most consistent site on the property and always gives you a wine with a distinct, lovely energy.

A standout vintage that was mild and long; this resulted in fruit being picked at optimal ripeness, but with the most moderate alcohol levels. This allowed the fruit character and fine structures within the wines to truly shine.

Fruit is hand-picked and 100% destemmed, allowing the fruit purity to really shine. The fruit from this site is the earliest ripening and most concentrated of the single-site blocks at Dalwhinnie.

Total yield from this hill block was around 3t, fermented in two tiny open fermented batches. After 15 days on skins the wine was pressed to new and used puncheons and matured for 14 months on ferment lees, less time that traditional for Dalwhinnie wines. The result is a what I feel is a medium bodied triumph, spice in waves, red fruits, dark fruits and umami-coating tannins.  Almost ethereally-light tannins that will endure the decades and give amazing drinking pleasure for years to come.

The wine is rich, dark purple in colour with fragrant aromas of warm spices complemented by dark plum, showing the intensity of this single vineyard wine. The wine is medium-bodied with great drive and length of flavour. This wine is expressive, powerful and rewarding. Waves of rich dark fruits, warm spices and subtle cedar oak roll across the palate. Accessible now, but will age with great grace and poise. Enjoy now or for the next two decades. – Julian Langworthy, Dalwhinnie