Monterra Farmilo Baker Shiraz 2023
$25, 14.5% alcohol, screwcap, McLaren Vale.
This is an excellent McLaren Vale shiraz. It’s velvety, for starters, which never hursts, but then it’s also red-and-black berried and carries a modest slip of chocolatey oak, all of which means that it both tastes good, and feels good. It’s satisfying. The finish is dry, the fruit is medium-weight but weighty-enough, and from every angle the value feels high. 91 points.
Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.
Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.
