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Wine Advocate 98+ points.   The 2021 Lamella Shiraz is made with fruit from the Angas family vineyard, Hutton Vale Farm, Eden Valley. The vineyard was planted with cuttings from the Mt Edelstone (Henschke) vineyard and represents the final pick of the season each year. Made with 100% whole bunches in the ferment, the wine opens with characteristic jasmine tea, bergamot, raspberry, graphite and star anise on the nose. The whole-bunch component, far from overtaking the fruit, is seamlessly integrated from the first instance this year. The wine is a cohesive whole and shows an elegance and presence that is beguiling, to say the least. If...

Wine Advocate 98+ Following on from the perfect 2022 release, I find myself opening this wine with a fair bit of excitement. I called Dan Standish one day in early May 2023 (I think to ask my questions about the wines I was tasting), and he was in the vineyard up in Eden Valley, picking the Lamella fruit for this wine. 2023 was a wet, cool season, so much so that the fruit for this cuvée was picked in May.   Still, aromatically, the 2023 Lamella Shiraz leads with sumac and orange peel, fresh raspberry, black cherry, licorice, petrichor, wet asphalt and river stones. Sandalwood and rose petals follow through the finish. This is...

    Wine Advocate 98 points. The 2021 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier is made with fruit from the Hongell family vineyard, Krondorf. It was made with 1% Viognier co-fermented, with 25% whole bunches in the ferment this year, up from 15% to 20% in 2020. The Relic is one of Australia’s greatest Shiraz Viognier wines, and it’s a sure thing each year for quality and execution of style. In 2020, it was my preferred wine of the collection for its savory, meaty/bacon fat/bloody character. All elements were in balance, and it managed a savory and floral drive within the same glass. Super cool. This year, I love the wine for all the...

"The 2022 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier contains 2% Viognier skins, and this addition presents in this vintage as a core of raspberry and pomegranate. It is pure fruited and powerfully aromatic, as this cuvee always is. Interestingly, I am tasting this wine from two different glasses: one opened two days ago, one opened this morning. They are quite different, telling us once again that oxygen really is a friend to this producer, especially if choosing to drink these wines young. While the bottle opened two days ago is complete, balanced and utterly refined, it speaks more of its florals and fruit than it does its savory register of spice...

Wine Advocate 98 points. The 2023 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier is texturally velvety and smooth; that may sound like a base observation to make, and perhaps it is, but the experience is overwhelmingly silky/ethereal this year. Apricot blossoms, sweet roasted bone marrow, hung deli meat, crushed rocks, licorice, anise and raspberry mingle in the glass, while the palate gives us these characters tenfold, bolstered and grounded by savory tannins. What more is there to say about this, other than that it is sensational? I find this to be an incredibly consistent wine year after year, with my scores rarely deviating too much from...

Wine Advocate 99 points. The Schubert Theorem lies within a branch of mathematics known as ‘knot theory’. It states that any knot can be uniquely decomposed as the connected sum of prime knots. Aptly named, this wine deconstructs the Schubert family vineyard into its distinct sections, taking the finest elements of each and re-assembling to connect and enhance their strengths.   Seductive, stylish and devastatingly powerful, the Standish wines are unmistakably Barossan with an X-Factor.  

Wine Advocate 98+ points. "I'm excited to taste this, as it was my favorite cuvée last year. It usually changes year to year, given the seasons, and I like that. It's usually the only cuvée to enjoy the benefits of an alternate vessel—a concrete egg—and this year, the 2022 The Schubert Theorem Shiraz joins the Relic and the Standish as well. The impact of the egg in this wine is one of refinement, or so I see it; it retains a purity of fruit at the core, which speaks to the chalky tannins that spool through the finish. They're chewy and seductive and really great. It's a beautiful...

Wine Advocate 98 points The 2023 The Schubert Theorem Shiraz is a gorgeous wine. It is silky, inky, pure, black as the ace of spades and long through the finish. The use of concrete egg in the fermentation/maturation stages lends the wine a sense of purity and finesse. It supports a core of crystalline fruit that is wrapped in earthy, grainy tannin and woven together with threads of saline acidity. It has rose petals, detail and delicacy, power and precision. Standish performs somewhat like a Burgundian producer—he works with one grape (I suppose two, if you count the small inclusion of Viognier in the Relic) to express different...

Wine Advocate 96 points. The 2020 The Standish Shiraz was made with fruit from the Laycock family vineyard, in Greenock. The first vintage was 1999. This vintage saw 30% whole bunches in the ferment. It offers notes of red dirt, a bit of blood, salted heirloom tomato and satsuma plum. This is concentrated, compacted, plush, dense and muscular, with notes of ras el’hanout, allspice, torched cinnamon and salted Dutch licorice. This wine is like playing "Magic Eye." There’s a lot going on, but if you relax, a pattern emerges and the detail becomes obvious for all to see. Within the fine but plushly tannic frame, there is...

Wine Advocate 96 points. The Standish Shiraz was made with fruit from the Laycock family vineyard, Greenock, with 30% whole bunches in the ferment. The Standish Shiraz was the first cuvée launched by Dan Standish in 1999, and the wine is routinely typified by its muscular tannin shape and earthy, savory fruit. The most attractive part of this wine is the splay of exotic market spice (namely sumac, black pepper, star anise and fresh cardamom) that sails in on the coattails of the red/purple fruit. It has all the exoticism and romance of a hike through the mountains of Morocco, yet it, perhaps more than any other wine in the collection,...

Wine Advocate 97 points. The 2023 The Standish Shiraz is the most "Barossan" of all the Standish cuvées. It exudes earthy brick dust   tannins and layers sumac and exotic spices with roasted game and sweet marrow. There are notes of black cherry, dried rose petals, sandalwood, hung deli meat and licorice, all of it strapped to rails of grounded tannin. It's chewy, substantial and of the earth, in its way. The fruit is sourced from the Laycock family vineyard in Greenock, as always, and it expresses the red clay and loam soils there in its splay of tannic fortitude and density. This is very impressive. It is fresh...