2018 Cornelius Strathallan Syrah

An opulent bouquet of blueberry and dark cherry fruits with spice, pepper and chocolate notes. The palate is rich with dark fruits and cherries, pepper notes and a hint of earthiness. The mid-palate has chocolate flavors with autumnal notes flowing through to cedar and gun smoke oak on the finish.

Winemaking Region: Bellarine Peninsula, Victoria.

Clone: PT23.

Oak Use: Spent 18 months in 50% new and 50% 1 year old French oak barriques.

Winemaking: The fruit was hand picked and de-stemmed to small 3 tonne open fermenters and cold soaked for 5 days. Fermentation was wild with the temperature peaking at 28 degrees. The wine was hand plunged once a day and pressed at dryness. It then underwent a wild malolactic fermentation in barrel where it was left maturing. After 18 months the wine was blended, fined, filtered and bottled.

Halliday Wine Companion

Mix of destemmed fruit and whole bunches (25%), 5 days cold soak, wild-yeast fermentation, mlf and 18 months' maturation in French oak puncheons (a third new). A single-vineyard expression of shiraz that works blueberries in among dark summer fruits, blackcurrant bon-bon confection, undergrowth and powerful spice. Fresh and juicy across the palate, highlighting the wine's youth. T7oasty oak is still settling in. Should evolve nicely.

95 Points