Wendouree Shiraz / 2023 / 750mL

The Wendouree Shiraz 2023 is a dense, old-vine Clare Valley Shiraz built on dark fruit and firm tannin rather than sweetness or weight for its own sake. Grown on vineyard plantings dating to 1919, it is a wine made in a deliberately unfashionable style — structured, savoury and made to be waited for.

Blackberry, mulberry and black plum sit at the centre of the aroma, edged with dried herbs, black pepper, iron and a faint bush-scrub bitterness that is a Wendouree signature. The palate carries that dark fruit through on a long, narrow line, with liquorice, cured meat and crushed-rock notes gathering behind it.

Tannin is the defining feature: fine-grained, insistent and drawn out across the finish, holding the fruit in check rather than sitting on top of it. The 2023 season in the Clare Valley was cool, long and late, with high disease pressure and a small crop, and the wine reflects that in its brightness of acid and comparatively lean, sinewy build — less overt ripeness than a warm year, more tension.

Approachable from around 2033 and likely to reward cellaring through to 2048 and beyond in good storage.