Howard Park Scotsdale Shiraz 2017

Make the most of this release of Scotsdale Shiraz because Howard Park is signalling that it may not be making the wine for much longer. The problem is increased demand from large wine companies for grower fruit.

Howard Park sources from Mount Barker and Frankland River regions in the Great Southern for this wine, and it would be a pity to see it finish. Where Leston is friendly, Scotsdale is structured and a little more fine-featured. It asks more of the drinker, the reward is a complex, balanced and long-living Shiraz.

The fruit quotient is dialled down a notch, the role of fine tannins and bright acidity dialled up, with the area in between flush in cinnamon and nutmeg spice, woodsmoke and toasty oak. Many critics refer to this wine’s noted elegance.  There’s poise, yes, but at this early stage Scotsdale is keeping to itself. The big reveal will be slow.

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