Agricola Helen Shiraz 2024

Ferrous and ironstone texture to the wine, mulberry, with the whole bunch showing it's spine, plummy, sappy and centred, tones of blue fruit and lift. Mitch Milicich, FWC

This is produced in the memory of Callum Powell’s grandmother, Helen Powell, and he has used one of her own artworks, a painting known as ‘Summer Vines’ (1994) for the label. The fruit comes from Naimanya from Flaxman Valley/Eden Valley and Adrian Hoffmann’s Limit Lodge in Ebenezer/Barossa Valley. Curiously, it is set in a Bordeaux bottle, but a curvy kinda sexy Bordeaux bottle.

This is sumptuous and satisfying. A haze to texture, a sheath of fine, silty tannin, a sense of coolness and richness, curiously meshed, red fruits, blue fruits, then choc-liquorice, some smoked paprika, charry spice, and a flourish of inky mulberry and salted liquorice to finish. Dried leaves, turned earth, brambles, a bit of bit tongue bloodiness also make landfall. A touch of cedar and clove too, plus some grip from those characters. Lots on. Lots! There’s a sense of levity to this wine, it lifts and lifts, that swish to texture is loose and pleasing. Much charm. 95 Points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front