Yelland & Papps Greenock Single Vineyard Shiraz 2022

You’ve got to love a happy ending. The lead up to vintage ’22 in the Barossa Valley was marked by record winter rainfall, poor fruit set in some grape varieties and a late October hailstorm – not your average growing season. But – and it’s a big but – not every producer was affected equally. I taste this Greenock Shiraz and there is a lot of joy to behold. Aromas of ripe plum, red berries, aniseed and earth. Everything is in its place on the palate with spice making a lively connection with tastebuds. It’s a measured wine, endowed nicely with tannin, but not obtrusive, just enough to ensure further ageing potential. This is medium bodied in the best sense: ripe in flavour, manageable in alcohol, supple in tannin and well-judged oak. Barossa winemaker talk of vintage ’22 wines as “elegant and structured.” Can’t disagree.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic