Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge Vineyard Syrah 2018
- 92
- $45
- Drink by: 2021 to 2028
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A wine of its time, perfect for our long days and nights of “iso.”
So apt in name, yes, but don’t go opening it too soon – this one is a keeper. We see a more subdued, still-waters-run-deep kind of Isolation Ridge in this release. It is asking for more time. If you agree, the rewards will be many.
A typical cool climate syrah – aka, shiraz – loaded with spice and sweet, enticing pepperiness. The pepper is less immediately obvious compared to its exuberant sibling, the Smith Cullam, but that peppery quality is enticing and brings lift and length to the wine.
All round, it works at binding all of its separate parts together: earth, mushroom, dried herbs and black cherry-berry fruits with oak (vanilla) and all that spice. It’s a big job. Give it time.
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.
