Description
Winemaker Notes
The Shiraz-Viognier is Clonakilla's flagship, a careful selection of the best of the Shiraz-Viognier parcels they craft from their Murrumbateman vineyard.
2022 was a cool vintage with gentle ripening progressing well into autumn. The cool season and longer ripening period have highlighted the intensity and quality of the spice elements in the wine.
It is beautifully fragrant in classic Clonakilla style, with serious but fine tannins ensuring longevity in the cellar.
Blend: 95, Shiraz, 5% Viognier
Professional Ratings
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Shiraz Viognier is sensational, but that assessment isn't breaking any ground. It includes 5% Viognier co-fermented and had 20% to 35% whole bunches in the ferment. Lacy, ethereal and structural, this is equal part Boscobel rose (which, to me, smells of raspberry leaf tea and rose essence) and roasted meat juices. It is sweet and savory, spicy and svelte and peppered by layers of pastrami and roast beetroot. There are notes of earth, licorice, black tea, jasmine flowers in summer and lashings of dried exotic spices. This is affirming and good, so good. Drink it now for Pinot-esque pleasure or in 15-20 years for elegant, meaty, ethereal, fresh, complex, layered excitement. All good either way. This is one of my favorite Australian Shirazes.
James Suckling
A cool, attenuated vintage that seems to possess the prerequisites for prodigious grace and long-term aging: extract, freshness and guile. All of this without an ounce of heaviness, such is the gentle mid-weighted timbre of this beautiful expression. For those seeking Barossa or Brunello, look elsewhere! But for those who seek poise, detail and mellifluous drinkability with a balletic gait, this gorgeous wine's patina of Sichuan pepper, clove, red fruits, violet, iodine and dried porcini delivers on all fronts. A supremely sophisticated wine that takes patience to unravel.
Australian Wine Companion
A cooler year has produced a pared-back, elegant and finer style that’s as exciting as any vintage. It’s peppery, spicy, a little sappy, laden with cranberries, pomegranate tartness, amaro and rosehips – quite exotic really. Accents on red cherries and red plums with oak spices and woodsy inputs bolstering the flavour profile and structure. It’s medium bodied, with the filagree tannins etched in as the acidity takes the lead to finish long and pure. Lovely now, and in good time, it will blossom further.
