Thicker Than Water Obscura Shiraz 2023

A wide-shouldered McLaren Vale Shiraz with a deep top dressing of oak – in this case soaked in 30 months of 70% new French and American hogshead barrels. Know this before you approach and you won’t be taken by surprise at the hugely timbered bouquet, which to its credit allows a modicum of rich and sweet, plum-jammy Shiraz to show its colours as well, both at first and more so in the palate, which is held tightly in the finish by well defined, barrel-derived tannins. Nothing shy about this Shiraz – it’s all big country bravado and ten gallon hats.