Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2022 - 750ml
Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier 2022 - 750ml
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97pts Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Shiraz Viognier is sensational, but that assessment isn't breaking any ground. It includes 5% Viognier co-fermented and had 20% to 35% whole bunches in the ferment. Lacy, ethereal and structural, this is equal part Boscobel rose (which, to me, smells of raspberry leaf tea and rose essence) and roasted meat juices. It is sweet and savory, spicy and svelte and peppered by layers of pastrami and roast beetroot. There are notes of earth, licorice, black tea, jasmine flowers in summer and lashings of dried exotic spices. This is affirming and good, so good. Drink it now for Pinot-esque pleasure or in 15-20 years for elegant, meaty, ethereal, fresh, complex, layered excitement. All good either way. This is one of my favorite Australian Shirazes. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
96pts James Suckling
A cool, attenuated vintage that seems to possess the prerequisites for prodigious grace and long-term aging: extract, freshness and guile. All of this without an ounce of heaviness, such is the gentle mid-weighted timbre of this beautiful expression. For those seeking Barossa or Brunello, look elsewhere! But for those who seek poise, detail and mellifluous drinkability with a balletic gait, this gorgeous wine's patina of Sichuan pepper, clove, red fruits, violet, iodine and dried porcini delivers on all fronts. A supremely sophisticated wine that takes patience to unravel. Drinkable now, but best after 2027. Screw cap.
Winemakers Notes
The Shiraz Viognier is our flagship, a careful selection of the best of the Shiraz Viognier parcels we craft from our Murrumbateman vineyard. A more European vintage perhaps. The cool season and longer ripening period have given us a beautifully fragrant wine with serious spice and soaring floral aromas along with classically fine, supple tannins. A hail storm on January 9 gave us plenty to worry about, reducing what was already a small crop. Mercifully, the vines recovered well. A brilliant ripening season followed, marked by a run of gorgeous weather in the crucial late Summer/early Autumn.