Shaw and Smith Shiraz Balhannah 2023

When Shaw + Smith made their first Shiraz in 2002, the Adelaide Hills was still widely considered too cool a region to ripen the variety properly. Cousins Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith — who founded the label in 1989, Martin trained at the University of Bordeaux, Michael the first Australian ever to pass the Master of Wine exam — proved otherwise, and this bottling has since become one of their most acclaimed reds. The fruit comes from their own Balhannah vineyard, planted in 2005 and close-planted at 5,500 vines per hectare on a north-facing block at 380 metres, where loam and clay sit over a distinctive subsoil of ironstone, quartzite, and shale. Hand-picked and hand-sorted, the wine is fermented as a considered mix of whole bunches and whole berries in open fermenters with gentle plunging, then matured fourteen months in French oak puncheons (just 15% new) before a further stretch of bottle age prior to release — the kind of patient, restrained process chief winemaker Adam Wadewitz (WINE magazine's Winemaker of the Year, 2022) has become known for across the whole range.

The result carries a genuine northern Rhône sensibility rather than typical Barossa or McLaren Vale weight: black olive brine, black and pink peppercorn, cured meat, and garrigue hover over dark cherry and snapped twigs, with whole-bunch-derived stemmy notes and a smoky, menthol lift adding real complexity. The palate is mid-weight and structured, textural and chalky, with firm tannins built to hold the fruit in place and let it pace itself over a long, evolving finish.