Driftwood Artifacts Margaret River Shiraz 2024

Margaret River Shiraz with a little help from its friends, namely Tempranillo (8%) and Malbec (2%). The two friends assist in a number of ways, first in the brilliant purple hues – quite stunning – and in an accompanying earthiness. The result is a combo of scents and flavours that range from the savoury through to the sweet fruited. A little shy to reveal but a good decant should work. Wild green herbs, stems, mix with aromas of black fruits, earth and spice. Thirty per cent of fruit was left whole bunch for carbonic maceration, while the rest was crushed and fermented in open fermenters before 12 months maturation in new and seasoned French oak. Well concentrated fruit and spice meet earth, undergrowth and fungal notes leading into some meaty savouriness. Finishes firm and dry on an astringent tannin note.

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