Halliday Wine Companion (98)

The perfumed, spicy bouquet with red flowers and fruits doesn't prepare you for the intensity and piercing length of its beautifully balanced medium-bodied palate. This is a truly glorious wine that draws you back again and again to explore the wealth of red fruit flavours, and the majesty of its texture and structure.

Decanter (98)

Quiet, controlled with a spellbinding timbre. Neverending, and phenomenal in terms of its quality.

James Suckling (99)

Incredibly complex aromas of baking spices, fresh red fruit and a fine and elegant, floral edge, as well as red cherries, raspberries and red plums. This is phenomenal, so precise and concentrated with such detail and power, delivered with elegance and precision. The palate is super long. The best vintage made at Clonakilla to date! Perfection! Drink now, but better from 2026. Screw cap.

Jane Anson Inside Bordeaux (97)

Clarity and nuance, silky tannins, herb-strewn, full of life and character and nuance, a whole other level of Cabernet Sauvignon, reflecting this unusual site. Blue fruits dominate over the darker cassis, adding freshness and keeping the rich concentration at arms length until the layers build through the palate. Smoked oak on the finish but it is barely discernable against the depth of fruit and minerality. Love this. Harvest April 13 and 16, 3.96ph. Just under 1,900 bottles produced.

Decanter (97)

An incredible Chardonnay from Margaret River with layers of complexity and nuance. So many aromatic touches on the nose, salty lemon notes alongside apricot, peach and lime zest with buttery almond edges. These follow through on the palate with a satisfying creamy texture. Smooth and structured, weighty but not overpowering and with a vein of freshness and wet stone minerality that gives it such life and energy. Hard not to love this. A total production of 2,288 bottles produced in 2018 by owner-winemaker Will Berliner. Grapes are hand sorted and whole-bunch pressed directly into barrel. An atypically cool spring and summer with unprecedented frost meant low yields and a harvest that was two weeks later than unusual. Despite the challenges this is a powerful and precise wine that is great to drink now and will age.

Vinous (96)

This decadently delicious 2020 Chardonnay immediately impresses with explosive aromas of vanilla cream, florals and just-picked nectarines with fantastic aromatic weight and volume. Packed full of marzipan, nutty oak and apricot flavours with a voluptuous texture, there is a perfectly balanced core of tangy acidity which keeps the energy high. A long, ripe and detailed finish tops what is a stunning package.

Nestled in the rich Southern McLaren Vale region, the Coriole Lloyd Reserve Shiraz 2013 is an exquisite embodiment of Australian excellence. This pre-eminent Shiraz, crafted by prominent winemaker Coriole Vineyards, charms with a bold, full-bodied profile encapsulating intense fruit flavours dappled with notes of savoury spice and dark chocolate. Each grape is attentively selected from the oldest vineyard plantings, dating back to 1919, ensuring a superior quality yield. The meticulous fermentation process in open-top vessels, followed by ageing in French oak barrels, bestow a distinguished depth and complexity that leaves a lingering palate impression.

Bearing the name of the Lloyd family, who established Coriole in 1967, the Coriole Lloyd Reserve Shiraz 2013 carries a legacy mirrored in its striking character and robust structure. Unquestionably, it's a testament to Coriole’s enduring commitment to create wines that captivate with their elegance and remarkable drinking pleasure.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

A cabernet-dominated (93%) blend, matured for 14 months in French barriques (67% new). Fluid grace, elegance personified, no compromise. Extraordinary attention to detail. From the Wilyabrup district, the heart of Margaret River cabernet blends.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

81% cabernet sauvignon, 10% merlot, 6% cabernet franc, 3% malbec. Wild-fermented and matured for 18 months in French oak (40% new). The colour is faultless, as is the wine. It has waves of complexity, like one of Margaret River's surf breaks, changing shape as the luxuriant cassis swells on the mid-palate, then finishes with ripe, textured tannins as the wave goes on to crash on the shore. The overall ripeness is perfection.

James Suckling (99)

This is a superb edition of this revered, cabernet-based blend with such complete, seamless and elegant feel, yet there’s such depth of flavor, too. Aromas of fresh redcurrants, red and violet flowers, subtle spice, fresh earth, paper bark, fresh-picked thyme and sage, red berries and some cedary notes. The palate is stunning and has a brand of elegance with power that is found in only the greatest wines. Pristine mulberries, red plums, blueberries and red cherries sail through layers of fine tannin, into an unwaveringly long and vibrant finish. An exceptionally concentrated and convincing Diana Madeline release, this is one of their finest. A blend of 79% cabernet sauvignon, 10% merlot, 6% cabernet franc and 5% malbec. Delicious now, but his will bloom from 2028. Screw cap.

Halliday Wine Companion (98)

87% Cabernet sauvignon, with 7/3/2/1% merlot/cabernet franc/malbec/petit verdot. Matured for 15 months in barrique, 45% new. Cassis and red licorice on the nose, bay and salt bush, too. The palate is salty and fine with layers upon layers of spice and texture. The tannins are like finely textured gills, stacked as delicately as the folds in a mushroom. The length of flavour unfurls and extends across the palate, taking so long to fade that this entire tasting note is possible off one sip. The rest are just for pleasure. Drink it now, or in 40+ years from now… both will be possible.

Wine Advocate (95+)

The 2020 Diana Madeline hails from a vintage that perhaps we underestimate its significance, purely by virtue of the fact that we may be too close to it currently. Similar to the World War years, any wine made in 2020 was done so under trying conditions heretofore not experienced by the global community. Widespread lockdowns, the threat of a then-unknown virus weighing down upon us all, uncertainty rife and mobility greatly restricted, the wines of the 2020 vintage are a triumph in themselves. In Margaret River, the season was warm, dry and early, and it has yielded a tranche of structurally powerful wines, as this is. The tannins here feel firm, and they serve to encase the fruit rather than exist within it, as other Diana Madelines exhibit. It is perhaps a wine that needs more time, and it is certainly a historical vintage to collect—if not for us now, then for our children later. 13.1% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Cullen Wines supplied the following technical details: The 2020 harvest dates included two moon-opposite-Saturn events and two full moons—one being a fruit day perigee and the other a moon-opposite-Saturn flower day—and took place from February 8 until March 10. The blend is 92% Cabernet Sauvignon, 4% Merlot, 3% Cabernet Franc and 1% Malbec. Closed tanks, open fermenters, barrels and amphora were all used in the fermentation process, and the period of skin contact lasted from 10 to 99 days, depending on the batch of wine. This wine spent 13 months in 50% new oak in a mixture of barriques and puncheons, with some biodynamic oak featuring. No additions of yeast, acid or malolactic acid were made to this wine.

Halliday Wine Companion (95)

57% malbec, 37% petit verdot, 6% merlot, hand-picked on 11 Feb '17, when a total eclipse occurred, turning the moon red. Wild-fermented, matured for 9 months in French oak (10% new). It's a delectably juicy red berry wine with minimal interference from tannins, but will be no pushover as it ages.

Halliday Wine Companion (97)

The price of this wine reflects the piercing brilliance of the bouquet and, in particular, the palate. There is some residual sugar, but the acidity totally obscures it. If you buy it, keep some bottles for a minimum of 10 years, allowing the treasure trove of secondary flavours to be liberated.

Halliday Wine Companion (97)

The bouquet surges from the glass, pink and yellow grapefruit to the fore, plus a desirable flick of funky complexity on the way through. It's entering its second life with the finale years away. It barely needs saying, but the savoury acidity is its staff of life. With deluxe chardonnays at $140-plus, this is positively cheap.

Wine Spectator (97)

Big and powerful, brimming with tarry, spicy black cherry, dark plum, blackberry and chocolate flavors. Rich and gooey like a warm flourless chocolate cake, yet it finds a plush balance that keeps it from veering off into heaviness. This has grace, harmony and refinement, without losing an ounce of power. Drink now through 2025. 600 cases imported. -HS

Experience the rich heritage of Australian wine with the Fox Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 1998, an exquisite vintage crafted in the celebrated McLaren Vale region. The maestros at the award-winning Fox Creek Estates have meticulously cultivated this sumptuous varietal in the alluvial, nutrient-rich terrains, with emphasis on sustainable farming practices.

The Fox Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 exudes a harmonious blend of blackberry, capsicum and violet aromas, complimented by bewitching notes of mocha and French oak vanillin stemming from the laborious 22 month barrel ageing process. This medium-to-full-bodied wine is bewitching on the palate with its perfectly balanced flavour profile and well-integrated tannins.

Offering a remarkable cellaring potential, the Fox Creek Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 captures the true essence of Australian winemaking, delivering an unwavering quality that has positioned it amongst the world's most sought-after wines.