St. Hallett Old Block Shiraz 2022

This famous wine was first made in 1980 by Robert O’Callaghan and longtime St. Hallett winemaker Stuart Blackwell. This is a cracking wine from a season that was ideal for this style of wine. It’s produced ripe, intense, and concentrated fruit that’s been captured perfectly. The colour is brilliant and bright with slightly crimson hues and a deep intensity. On the nose, there’s quite a distinctive combination of spices, licorice, and deep blackberry and blackcurrant notes. It suggests power, and then the palate delivers. It’s generous and opulent with a plummy, slightly liqueur cherry character and some spicy clove-like combinations. It’s impeccably balanced with fine, though firmish, tannins providing the structure, and the oak is neatly integrated. The wine spent about 18 months in a combination of French hogsheads and puncheons, and it struck just the ideal balance, allowing the fruit to fully express its qualities. This is a wine that you could drink now, such is its balance, but obviously it has the pedigree to handle extended cellaring.