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2023 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier
Clonakilla's flagship, the Shiraz Viognier, represents a meticulous selection of the finest parcels from their Murrumbateman vineyard. The 2023 vintage presented challenges with a wet, cool spring that delayed vine growth, leaving uncertainty about whether the grapes would ripen. Fortunately, a warm late summer and mild autumn allowed the fruit to ripen perfectly by mid-April. The 2023 Shiraz Viognier showcases intense and pure fruit aromas, capturing the essence of cool-climate Shiraz. This vintage is style-defining, with an elegant and luminous palate, making it an exceptional example of Clonakilla's signature style.
Alc. 13%
Other Reviews....
The flagship is in fine form from this cool vintage, rendering it elegant and quite exotic. Plus, 22% whole bunches in the ferment make an impact. It’s a touch sappy yet laden with heady aromatics – all florals with a dusting of Middle Eastern spices such as sumac. Super peppery. The mid-weighted palate is tight and a touch lean with red fruit accents, bright acidity and fine if plentiful tannins. It’s a wine you keep coming back to as it reveals more and differently. It's lovely and enticing; it feels light and ethereal, deceptive. Time will reward the patient as this builds more complexity, but it is seriously hard to resist now. Drink 2024 - 2035.
95 Points
Jane Faulkner - Halliday's Australian Wine Companion
I’ve loved Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier since the 1997 release and I love them from all manner of seasons. But gradually, over time, I’ve come to really prize the results of the cooler seasons, and the 2023 season was one of those. In a wine like Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier, which comes from a micro-climate, seasonal variation makes a distinct difference.
The finesse of this release. The fragrance too, which leads to a palate where just enough, feels like extra. It’s buoyant, juicy and perfumed, with a wild party of spice notes flying through the wine like happiness itself, or like confetti, either way there’s an air here of celebration. This wine sits on the apex of the road, where the rain meets the oil. The fruit flavours have a water-colour aspect; the texture coats the flavour in satin. We’ve come to expect all the above from Clonakilla’s flagship wine. What’s special, for me, in this 2023 release is the web of tannin, as dewy as it is strong. There’s a weave to this release. It’s a masterpiece of twigs, nuts and strings. If Morricone had been a winemaker he’d have made something like this. Orchestral. Spellbinding. Itself.
Abandon all resistance, ye who enter here.
Extra details: 22% whole bunches, 6% viognier, co-fermented, wild yeast, three week-ish maceration, 33%-ish new oak.
96 Points
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
Put simply, this is one of Australia’s greatest wines, year after year, and one of only a handful that can be reliably called world class, without hesitation. It is also one of the world’s very best Shiraz Viognier blends, happily sitting beside the best from Cote Rotie. From a cool year, their third in a row, the blend is 94% Shiraz and 6% Viognier. 22% of the Shiraz was whole bunches and that was co-fermented with the Viognier, via wild yeasts. For maturation, the wine went into French oak barrels, both puncheons and barriques, with one-third of them new. Deep magenta, the nose exhibits all the joy and complexity that we have come to expect from this stellar wine. Focus, balance and seemingly endless length, this also has silky tannins and while there is an underlying exuberance with the fruit, everything is held in restraint. Cocoa powder, truffles, raspberries, spices, aniseed and tobacco leaves, the wine is utterly seamless with fifteen to twenty years ahead of it, with ease. Virtuoso winemaking resulting in a masterpiece. Drink 2024 - 2044.
98 Points
Ken Gargett - Winepilot