Agricola Vintners - Helen Shiraz - 2024

This is produced in the memory of Callum Powell’s grandmother, Helen Powell, and he has used one of her own artworks, a painting known as ‘Summer Vines’ (1994) for the label. The fruit comes from Naimanya from Flaxman Valley/Eden Valley and Adrian Hoffmann’s Limit Lodge in Ebenezer/Barossa Valley. Curiously, it is set in a Bordeaux bottle, but a curvy kinda sexy Bordeaux bottle. This is sumptuous and satisfying. A haze to texture, a sheath of fine, silty tannin, a sense of coolness and richness, curiously meshed, red fruits, blue fruits, then choc-liquorice, some smoked paprika, charry spice, and a flourish of inky mulberry and salted liquorice to finish. Dried leaves, turned earth, brambles, a bit of bit tongue bloodiness also make landfall. A touch of cedar and clove too, plus some grip from those characters. Lots on. Lots! There’s a sense of levity to this wine, it lifts and lifts, that swish to texture is loose and pleasing. Much charm. 95 Points Mike Bennie, The Wine Front