Hewitson Strawberry Hill Shiraz 2023
- 97
- $150
- Drink by: 2025-2045
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This wine only appears in the best vintages. It is named after an old strawberry patch which grows next to the vineyard providing this fruit. Fermented in open vats over a three week period, the team use whole berries as much as possible. Maturation is in French oak barrels of varying age, including a small percentage of new. The colour of the wine is a very dark mauve/maroon. This is a superb and finely crafted example of Barossa Valley Shiraz. The nose exhibits notes of chocolate, licorice, coffee beans, cassis and mocha. The oak has been expertly handled and the structure is seamless with a satiny, dense texture, leading to silky tannins. There is impeccable balance and great length to this wine. A gorgeous and stunning Shiraz with twenty years of great drinking in its future.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
