2014 Mount Pleasant Maurice O'Shea Shiraz

Other Reviews....
I went looking for the winemaking specs for this wine on the Mount Pleasant website and noticed, right there alongside, a review of the wine by James Halliday. In his review, which likens it to a Rolls Royce, JH uses the word “throbbing”. There’s a word for you. Context: “throbbing power”. You had to be there. In any case, Maurice O’Shea Shiraz is “a blend of the best fruit available, only made in the best years. Fermented at 18-25˚C for approximately 7 days. Gently pressed to large format French oak barrels for almost 18 months maturation, before blending and bottling.”
It tends towards richness without quite getting there; another way of saying that it mines the perfect fruit intensity zone for a Hunter Valley red. It’s all cherries, red and black, with boysenberry and even plum, though rusty spice and red earth characters play key roles too. We have ourselves here a perfectly turned out wine. Tannin ties a ribbon around the old vine fruit in a most beguiling – and assertive – fashion. Creamy oak lends a hand, but a gentle and guiding one at most; it’s the bus driver, not the bus. The mouthfeel: silken without being syrupy. This will still be ticking over in captivating fashion in 20 years time. Drink 2020 - 2035+
96 Points
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front (November 2016)

'Arguably, one of the greatest red vintages in living memory', says Mount Pleasant. The flagship wine. Destemmed and crushed, short cold soak, open-fermented, matured in large format French oak (30% new) for 18 months. Has the gently throbbing power of a Rolls Royce; superb, deep crimson-purple hue, itself rare in the Hunter Valley. Countless layers of black fruits have absorbed the oak and put the undoubted tannins into limbo land. O'Shea would have died a happy man had this been his last wine. Dissecting it now is an academic exercise at best, so great is its future. This is as close to a 100-year potential as you are ever likely to find. Drink by 2064.
99 Points
James Halliday's Australian Wine Companion (February 2016)