Riversdale Estate Syrah 2019

Just a decade or so ago, Tassie Shiraz was all but unheard of. The climate was just too cool to fully ripen grapes. What a difference 10 years and a changing, warming climate brings. Of course, there is reason for concern at seeing grapes not normally suited to regions now flourishing, but it also shows producers adapting to climate change. Riversdale Estate has not only achieved a healthy 14.3% abv in the 2019 vintage, but delivered a Syrah that fits the image of a wine medium in body, fine in structure and with spiciness to the fore. There’s a real touch of class here. Spice-led anise, riffs of pepper, nutmeg, a touch of menthol mix with red berries, cranberry and gentle oak. Oak helps to ground this wine, offering an attractive base of pencil shavings/graphite in league with savoury tannins which contributes complexity while remaining bright and youthful.

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