Magpie Hill Reserve Shiraz 2020
HERBS AND SPICE • PLUMS • SOFT TANNINS
Lovely colour, complex nose, and lots of flavour. This was a drought year which produced amazing intensity in the fruit. Structured tannins with soft shoulders make a very dignified wine. The iron fist in a velvet glove! Age 20 years. 750ml.
Accolades
96 points, James Halliday Wine Companion
If you've been following this vineyard, you'll be expecting great things from this wine, and well you should. The cool-climate Porongurup vineyard has been responsible for a number of startlingly impressive cuvées over the years and this is no exception. Silky texture in the mouth, plump, concentrated black fruit and layers of sweet spice. It's a marvel. Love the plum through the finish.
95 points, The Real Review
Very deep, dark red-purple colour, the bouquet concentrated, dark-fruited and laced with spicy oak. The wine is concentrated also in flavour; powerful, full bodied and strongly structured, with lashings of firm but ripe tannins, the whole thing powering long into an extended aftertaste. This is young and bold, will benefit from a little cellar time before drinking, and promises to age long-term.
Appearance: dark deep purple magenta
Aroma: satsuma plum, dark black cherries, dark chocolate, cedar shavings, violet floral lift, delicate nutmeg oak
Palate: bright rich blue and black forest berry fruits; mulberry and boysenberry with plum and juicy cherry skin; dark chocolate and molasses tones wrapped in firm yet finely powerful tannins; good fresh acid core, framed by complete and seamless tannin with all the elements in fine balance to give great aging potential
A warm, dry year with extreme drought conditions created a tiny crop of small, thick-skinned berries of great intensity, flavour, and structure and an opaquely dark colour. All harvested fruit was of Magpie Hill Reserve quality, no Single Vineyard wine produced.
Selectively harvested in early morning, the fruit was cool when it arrived at the winery. It was destemmed into open top fermenters and allowed to cold soak naturally before the ferment was allowed to proceed, followed by gentle hand-plunging daily. Some post-ferment maceration was done for complexity and structure; and the pressing was gentle, creating a powerful yet silky wine. Aged in 100% French oak (35% new), made up of 50% 300L hogsheads and 50% barriques, for 14 months. Bottled in August 2021. Released in March 2022.
- Vintage 2021
- Alcohol 14.1%
- Vineyard 100% Estate Grown
- Varietal Shiraz
- Bottling date August 2021
- Region Great Southern, Western Australia
- Sub-region Porongurup
- Residual sugar <2 g/l
- pH 3.63
- Acidity 5.3 g/l