Reviews

This is fantastic. You can buy twenty-two bottles of this or one bottle of Grange, it’s your call. The finesse of this, the insistence, the wild ride of spice and fresh, foresty fruit, the way it wakes you from your slumber. Everything, I tell you, everything is just so joyously good. This is one of the Australian red wines of the year. Pepper, malt, mint, dark choc, hazelnuts and all those bunchy, peppery herbs. There’s a dry, tense, electric length to it, all the flavours buzzing through it. The only downside is that it’s not for everyone – they didn’t make much of it anyway – because it’s just so packed with cool-grown personality. Anyway. Stuff ’em. You heard it here first. $45 is a deep, deep bargain.

Cambell Mattinson, The Winefront
96 points

For some reason I can’t access the Dappled site so I don’t have details. In any case it doesn’t matter. Scrub any reservations I have over the 2018 vintage.

This is a ripper. If you like cool-climate, savoury shiraz then get onto this one. It’s awash with herb and spice notes, into pepper, but the sweet carpet of fruit is simply glorious. This is the biscuit, and tastes a bit like one too. Strawberry, black cherry, sawdust, twigs and roasted beetroot. Nails it. Love it. Yes.

Cambell Mattinson, The Winefront
95 points

Hand-picked and sorted, cooled, 100% whole bunches in an airtight vessel for 2 weeks then foot-stomped once a week for 5 weeks, pressed to a very old puncheon with full lees and not touched until the following May. It’s pretty extreme, and it is remarkably good, especially with its retention of dark cherry/spicy fruit flavours.

James Halliday
94 points

It sees 100% whole bunch in the ferment, so hold on to your hats. Steels Creek is the single site.

This is really good gear. Succulent, silky, long, slightly wild. Definitely shows off that snap of brown stems, lift of pepper, gloss in texture of the whole bunch turbo-charge, but there’s just ripe raspberry characters, charcuterie too, even a spiff of Chinese five spice in the mix.

Effortless glide through the palate on rails of cool acidity and tightness on slender rails of tannin to a refreshing, slightly too-tangy, finish. All up, really like this edgy wine.

Mike Bennie, The Winefront
93 points

From a single vineyard in Steels Creek at a warmer lower elevation. Wild-fermented with 100% whole bunches, matured in large-format used oak. Bright clear purple-crimson. Has that distinctive fresh, focused profile of well made wines from the vintage. Red and dark cherry with a kitchen cupboard full of spice. Particularly good line, length and balance for a medium-bodied wine of great character. Screwcap. 13.5% alc. Rating 95 To 2032

James Halliday
95 points

Deep crimson-purple; radiates its sense of place with aromas of black cherry, liquorice and cracked pepper, savoury tannins joining the party on the complex, well balanced palate. Still settling in, but is a winner in the medium term.

James Halliday
94 points