Hentley Farm Barossa Valley Viognier 2021
The prettiest of enticing aromatics invite with the Hentley Farm Viognier: nectarines, gardenias and the freshness of creamy apricot yoghurt. This is an opulent, textural wine, but with so much more of interest: a mineral edge, slight salinity and enough vibrant acidity for when you want something super interesting and moreish to drink. Very classy, very lovely, and an absolute treat with a plate of scallops roasted on the half-shell with ginger butter. RRP $43
Hentley Farm Old Legend Barossa Valley Grenache 2020
The 2020 Grenache from Hentley Farm is a millefeuille of layered fruitiness versus savouriness: morello cherry and liquorice, rhubarb compote and bean stalk, sweet jubes and aromatic spice. It’s plush and ripe, soft but intense in your mouth, with rich concentration of gorgeous grenachey raspberry and cherry fruits and a grind of peppered spice. A velveteen palate, like a bowl of melted milk chocolate, but then acidity kicks in to make it juicy. This is a serious and weighty version of Grenache, and one that finishes like a warm hug. Match it with a Lancashire hot pot: slow braised lamb with baked-in slices of sodden but crispy rosemary potatoes. RRP $62
Hentley Farm Barossa Valley Zinfandel 2019
From the tough, rainless 2019 vintage and harvested later in the growing season to allow the grapes to partially dry, this Zinfandel has so much going on: aromas of the sweet dried fruit richness of a Christmas cake layered with fresh berried redcurrants and cranberries. There are notes of green peppercorn and gutsy scents of bloody fresh meat, and then also a touch of a private club library of leather, papers and dust. On the palate the wine is smooth with sweet ripe and rich fruits and a texture of velvet. There’s no doubt it’s a big wine at 15.5% alcohol, but underneath the big frame there is linear acidity & then creeping tannins that ride like a tsunami to the finish. Not for the faint-hearted and delicious to the last drop. The intensity and fruit richness of this wine would be a handy match for a bowl of spicy Korean beef brisket, braised with the umami and heat of gochujang chilli paste. RRP $40
Hentley Farm The Quintessential Barossa Valley Shiraz Cabernet 2019
‘Quintessential, adjective: Representing the most perfect or typical example of a quality or class’, nominating Shiraz Cabernet as the quintessential Australian red blend and a total sum of its parts: Shiraz for the rich fruit and full but soft palate, and Cabernet for its fresh acidity and grippy tannins. The Hentley Farm Quintessential displays this and more, with complex aromas of primary cassis, black plums and raspberry twists, and tell-tale signs of a warm and dry vintage with caramelised beetroot notes and savouriness with toasted rice, cigar wrapper and record shop vinyl. It is ripe, rich and powerful, with big-berried fruit intensity, and that cabernet structure in balance: intense fruit, vanillin oak, acidity for longevity and a tannin grip that grows in your mouth from gentle to monster with a chewy finish a mile long. Lots of time ahead for this wine, and I’d call it pretty damn perfect (and typical!) with a plate of osso buco and soft parmesan polenta. RRP $62
Hentley Farm The Beauty Barossa Valley Shiraz 2019
Grown on the coolest block on the estate and co-fermented with 3% Viognier, The Beauty is the more elegant partner to The Beast and beguiles with a bouquet of ripe sweet bush raspberries on a summer’s day, and red currants, black plums and violets alongside savoury notes of white pepper and leather-bound books. On the palate the wine is velvety, it’s ripe, rich and smooth, with blackcurrant compote flavours, choc-chip cookies and cream, and liquorice and black pepper notes. The structure is in balance – with alcohol at 15% everything is super-charged – but it has the acidity to carry the weight (refreshing even!) and then that firm tannin grip with chewiness at the finish: a veritable hallmark of Hentley Farm’s wines. And even more beautiful with a roasted leg of lamb, broad beans with roasted fennel potatoes. RRP $62
Hentley Farm The Beast Barossa Valley Shiraz 2019
Deeply inky, intense and brooding in the glass, the grapes from the new release of The Beast, crafted out of the challenges of the complicated warm and dry 2019 vintage, were selected from a single block high on the hill, their vines rooted in shallow soils of red clay overlying shattered limestone. The resulting wine’s nose is all black and blue fruits – blackberries, blackcurrants, black plums – and super savoury, with notes of Lajaunie liquorice cachous, vanilla and freshly shaved pencil oak complexity. The wine is majestic, it’s full bodied and intense with ripe, concentrated fruit, and creamy smoothness on the middle palate. It’s a beast of wine, with over 15% alcohol adding richness and power, but with winemaking handled masterfully it still has acidity in balance and oak influence shown by a teeth-furrying savoury tannin grip, and a length not so much lip-smacking as mouth-smacking. You can certainly drink it now with some decanting but it will repay a decade or more in the cellar, and deserves nothing less than Beef Wellington, with paté and mushroom duxelle in buttery puff. RRP $89.50
