Allegiance Wines The Artisan Reserve Barossa Valley Shiraz 2022
$65, 14.5% alcohol, screwcap, Barossa Valley.
This delivers the goods. Blackberry, chocolate, glacé cherry and smoked cedar flavours lead to notes of Christmas cake, orange rind and peppermint. It’s both solid and fresh at once, its oak-derived and fruit-serviced flavours as harmoniously combined as you could hope for. 92 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.
