The Auswine Forum

G'day

Decanted 30 minutes before service. There was a lot of sediment in the bottle.

Deep purple in colour. no bricking. Powerful nose of ripe blackberry, dark plums, leather and furniture polish, cloves and vanilla. The leather is becoming more prominent as the wine breathes in the glass. The palate is full-blooded with the developed fruits to the fore, and a little raisin or Christmas pud. Tannins are integrated and barely noticeable beneath the fruit and acid. Long finish.

At 21, I suggest this is unlikely to improve, but it is consistent with other Clarendon Hills syrahs I have had from the 2000s over recent months / years. In other words, a big wine!

Cheers
Allan

My last bottle, 2 years later on.

The tasting note from 2024 remains largely unchanged. There's still a concentration of (fully developed) fruits on the nose, along with plenty of leather and furniture polish. The palate has ripe red fruits especially, and plenty of cloves and Christmas cake. Full bodied and still surprisingly drinkable.

Cheers
Allan

They’re such a fascinating winery.

My hypothesis is a lot of these older iterations that followed the trend of the time will last 20+ easy. The newer versions seem a lot more terroir focussed with less winemaker intervention (I could be wrong).

I grabbed a 6-pack of the Syrah release last month. It was great value really - includes a 2024 Astralis.

I’ve got wines spanning these suspected philosophical changes and look forward to comparing them over time. I’m not sure the market has quite caught on to the changes and till tend to think of their newer wines like the 90-00 iterations.

Thanks as always for the notes.

Cheers, Ed