Standish • Shiraz-Viognier The Relic 2016

Einer der größten Weine Australiens

Shiraz-Viognier The Relic 2016

Standish

Barossa Valley, South Australia

Wine Advocate #238 (August 2018) (Parker/Czerwinski)

99/100

Everything about Standish's 2016 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier is remarkable, starting with the ridiculous color. It's so dark, so purple, so vibrant. Then the nose boasts soaring florals and stone fruits, while the palate delivers fresh blueberries and dried spices. It's full-bodied but creamy-textured, with supple tannins and concentrated fruit that lingers on the plush finish. Just awesome stuff.

I consider Dan Standish the reigning king of Barossa Shiraz. On a conference-room table at Peter Lehmann, surrounded by other top-quality wines, his 2016s completely bowled me over for their intensity, complexity and harmony. And, according to Standish, 2016 was an easy vintage. One-and-a-half inches of rain in January slowed down the ripening until harvest could take place under slightly cooler conditions. "We had tiny berries, we had to do nothing in the vineyards," he said. Sourced from single old-vine plantings in the subregions of Ebenezer, Marananga, Greenock and Hutton Vale, this is a prodigious collection of wines, meticulously produced in tiny quantities from old vines and low yields.