Wolf Blass Platinum Label Medlands Vineyard Barossa Valley Shiraz 2021

First thoughts are, as good as this is, it would be a waste to open it any time in the next four to five years. This is a wine which desperately needs time and if you want something for now, grab the Grey Label McLaren Vale – you’ll save a heap and drink better. But if you want a wine for the long haul, this is the one. Anyone putting this in their cellar and returning to it in a decade will be thrilled. From the famous Medlands Vineyard in the Dorrien sub-region of the Barossa, this provides stunning Shiraz. The wine is fermented to dryness on skins before pressing and racking to a mix of 80% seasoned and 20% new French oak for an 18 month spell. The colour is opaque maroon and the nose is still very much closed, but gives the impression it is bursting at the seams to come forth and reveal all – it just needs time. There is oodles of flavour, blackberries, coffee grinds, vanillin oak, dark chocolate, soy, beef stock and licorice. The wine has focus and direction, with immense underlying power. Good intensity for the full length, silky tannins and a very long finish. The score will undoubtedly rise in the coming years, as this is a ten to twenty year proposition.