BlackJack Chortle’s Edge Shiraz 2024

In ’98, frost destroyed the entire crop at BlackJack. Chortle’s Edge was the result, a Shiraz sourced from neighbouring growers in the region. Now, as BlackJack recovers from the January fires of earlier this year when large quantities of its wines – and many other producers’ wines – were wiped out in the Harcourt Coolstore fire, Chortle’s seems to resonate even more. It’s a wine that represents endurance in the face of disaster: well-priced, well made, delivering a lovely generosity of flavour that speaks powerfully of the winemaking team behind it and their wine philosophy. Bright and lively in ripe black fruits, plums and spice with an earthy, dried leafiness that rises across the middle palate, it finishes on a rising peppery note. Fine yet firm tannins are in place. Plenty of flavour and class here for the money.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic