Bekkers McLaren Vale Syrah 2024
- 96
- $120
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This has such restrained richness and profound complexity. Savoury notes lead the charge with briny olive tapenade, cracked pepper, pan juices. Some time reveals black cherry, blackberry, pain au chocolat and some forest floor tones before some emergent bitter tones of espresso and cacao. Despite the weightiness some of these descriptors conjure, it’s quite the opposite. There’s light and shade, a weave of savoury complexity through dark-yet-levitous fruit. The palate is like velvet, it’s intense and brooding but again defying gravity as it glides through the mouth with buoyancy and energy. Blackberry and black cherry again, complexified by pain au chocolat, ground coffee, dark chocolate, olive brine, peppered meat. The tannins are grainy and brilliantly integrated, framing the wine while also propelling it to brilliant and seemingly endless length. This is an outstanding wine. A display in retentions of regional identity captured through a lens of detail and restraint. Excellent.
Tom Kline is a wine writer, reviewer, presenter, and educator based in Victoria, Australia. He is the Australian correspondent for the internationally respected publications Jasper Morris Inside Burgundy and Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux, where he highlights the top tier of Australian wine for a global audience. Tom also writes for leading outlets including Decanter (UK), Wine Spectator (US), and Halliday Magazine, among others. An experienced wine show judge and WSET educator, he has authored several consumer-focused wine courses aimed at making wine more accessible and engaging. In 2023, Tom was awarded Best Published Feature Article or Wine Column at the prestigious Wine Communicator Awards, presented by Wine Communicators of Australia.
