The Lane Vineyard Estate Syrah 2023
$60, 13.5% alcohol, screwcap, Adelaide Hills.
The spice notes are plentiful, the fruit is both ripe and pure, and smoky, cedarwood oak has been employed in judicious and appropriate measure. This is an impeccable Adelaide Hills Syrah, aflame with black pepper and general spice notes and then ripped with fresh, dark, satisfying fruit. Tannin, fine-grained and assertive, completes a beautiful quality picture. 94 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.
