Kay Brothers Hillside Shiraz 2022

A selection of blocks off the estate, with varying soils; 18 months élevage in American and French oak. This has some classic appeal, with forward fruit and a familiar lick of oak, but there’s also such polish and relative transparency to it. The fruit, from a cooler year, has a buoyant, vivid feel, absent heaviness and paired with an elegantly effective structural framework. Blackberry and cherry, freeze-dried raspberry, fine milk chocolate, vanilla, clove and allspice, iron and earth, dried scrubby herbs. This is engaging now, but the structure will see it age well, too. 95 points – Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion