Murdoch Hill Orion Oakbank Syrah 2022

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Mattinson review of Murdoch Hill Orion Oakbank Syrah 2022.

Murdoch Hill Orion Oakbank Syrah 2022
$91, 13% alcohol, screwcap, Adelaide Hills

When I sat down to a tasting of the best-of-the-best Australian shiraz-based wines of 2023/24, this was my favourite wine in the line-up. It was therefore my shiraz of the year for 2024, unofficially. It’s a wine of both depth and delicacy, and tautness, with wild slings of mezcal, black pepper and bell pepper characters tossed through pure, beautiful, exquisitely-well-ripened red and black berried fruit. It’s a charismatic wine, it’s a structured wine, it’s fruited and it’s classic in its savoury styling. But it’s also a wine with that something, indefinable, more. 97 points.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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