Wills Domain Paladin Hill Shiraz 2019

The regime for their top Shiraz follows the familiar pattern to many of the other red wines in the Wills Domain portfolio – whole berries of destemmed fruit are cool fermented, at around 22°C, which the team see as essential to retaining “fruit freshness and allowing for gentle extraction of tannin and flavour”. The wine then spends 10 days on skins and is pumped over twice daily, before being transferred to French Oak barriques. 

The colour is deep purple and it is immediately obvious that this is a ripe, plush, concentrated and deeply flavoured wine. Dry herbs, cassis, red fruits and mulberries here. There is also balance and finesse, with signs of early complexity – this will build over the next few years. There is certainly a good future here with excellent length and grippy tannins on the finish. Expect this to age for at least 6 to 8 years and this will surely get better – a fine example of Margaret River Shiraz.