Wine Reviews

I hesitate to call Gamay serious; it's designed for enjoyment, for ease. But, in many Australian examples, we've seen less backbone than the variety deserves. This isn't one of those examples. The fruit for this wine is from the Deanery vineyard in Balhannah. Alan Deanery takes great care, wrangling an often ferociously yielding vine and paring it back. The decisions made in the vineyard result in a little more density to complement a superb line of acidity and brightness of red fruit – pomegranate, raspberry leaf, Christmas berries and just-ripe strawberry. Blackberries, too. Delicious now, certainly, but the mesh of tannin suggests we should stow away a couple of bottles in the cellar.

94 Points.

Katrina Butler. Halliday Wine Companion. Published 11 March, 2025