Orin Swift Machete California Petite Sirah Red Blend 2017

Dave Phinney, the winemaker/creator behind Orin Swift sounds like a fun guy who doesn’t mind shaking things up. Just take a look at his out-there wine labels and you’ll get the drift. And he writes a pretty entertaining brochure by way of introduction to his brand, Orin Swift, which sources grapes from throughout California. Machete? Weird wine name, right? It’s a play on grapes making the (machete) cut to qualify for inclusion in the petite sirah (aka durif)/syrah/grenache blend. 

The blend comes under cork in a wax-topped, super heavy wine bottle (just so you know it’s an expensive wine) and arrives in the glass with a super-charged high alcohol of 15.6%.  Bold is its middle name. But – and it’s a big but – Machete then proceeds to quietly allay any misconceptions you might be harbouring. This is a serious wine. 

Deep, dark and inky, it opens with a rush of dusty blackberry, cassis, spice, toasty oak, lifted and nicely joined in unison. There’s a sense of controlled winemaking, nothing too flashy or obvious, where the complexity of fruit is the star. The mouth fills with flavour with a touch of grenache confection and violets mixing with chocolate, anise and an earthiness. Firm structural support courtesy of ripe tannins complete the picture.

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