Wynns Coonawarra Estate Michael Shiraz 2012

Jeni Port
96 Points – Drink 2021 – 2035

Sometimes we see a great vintage date on a wine bottle and next, the pulse picks up speed, the tastebuds tingle, just a bit. Then the questions start.mWill the vintage live up to its reputation? Has it improved from when it was last tasted?

The 2012 vintage in Coonawarra was a stunner. From its release, Michael Shiraz got the old pulse racing. Today, nine years later some of us might have our doubts about its continuing ability to shine. I am happy to report that the wine not only remains with us in elegance and poise – a defining 2012 character – but in freshness, too. This is where we need to thank the screwcap Gods for delivering a wine free of cork flavour (or taint, for that matter). Indeed it retains a remarkable freshness that enhances its innate beauty.

Glistening purple-garnet colour. Definitely youthful for its age. The scent of florals, blackberry, plums, warm toasty oak and spice is still very much alive.

Seamless entry. A meticulous shiraz nowhere near its prime as yet, Michael builds in complexity. Fruit freshness is slowly evolving into a more developed whole, of bramble, earth and chocolate wrapped carefully in spice and oak. And those tannins? They sit in the background keeping everything in place. The 2012 is gaining on the complexity and elegance so evident at the start of its life, settling into a truly classic Coonawarra shiraz. You know when you are in the presence of a special wine. This is it.

Ray Jordan
98 Points – Drink 2021 – 2040

I loved this wine on release several years ago, but with extra bottle age this marvelous wine from an outstanding vintage has risen to a new height in excellence and expression. It is without doubt one of the very finest releases in this distinguished line, and it is finally starting to show its best features. Certainly, it is one of the most elegant with such refined elegance and stylishness. Beautifully crafted with those fine Coonawarra chalky tannins and cleverly judged integrated oak supporting such deep and enduring fruit intensity. Gorgeous stuff.

Tony Love
97 Points

Immediately rich and opulent, darker fruits with high-class oak finding genuine harmony, both as flavourists as well as creating a mouthfeel that lingers seemingly forever, the fruit still vibrant while the integration of its traditional cedary oak layers the palate with a powder-coating of fine tannins. In a mighty fine frame of expression at the moment with five to ten more years at least of such supremacy.