2007 Shaw + Smith Shiraz Reviews
Decanter World Wine Awards 2009
Gold Medal
Trophy for Best Australian Shiraz over 10 GBP
International Wine Challenge 2009
Gold Medal
Trophy Adelaide Hills Red
James Halliday, The Weekend Australian Magazine 18-19 July 2009
96 Points
Partly made from estate-grown grapes at Balhannah, and partly from a warmer site at Macclesfield; unlike the ’06, no viognier has been included. Trophy 2009 Decanter World Wine Awards Best Australian Red Rhône Varietal over £10. Deep crimson-purple; a classy bouquet promises spicy black fruits and quality oak which the medium to full-bodied palate delivers in spades, with layers of flavour and perfect balance; right up there with the great ’06.
James Halliday, Australian Wine Companion 2010
Deep crimson-purple; a classy bouquet promises spicy black fruits and quality oak which the medium to full-bodied palate delivers in spades, with layers of flavour and perfect balance; right up there with the great ’06.
Huon Hooke, Sydney Morning Herald 7th July 2009
….The last two Shaw and Smith Shirazes are cracking wines: the ’06, from another cool year, is fine boned, elegant, spicy and svelte; the ’07 is a bigger, more powerful, richer and fuller-bodied style, with more of everything. Both are superb.
Nick Stock, Adelaide Hills Magazine Winter 2009
This is a stylish, cool, medium-weight Rhone lookalike. Red fruits and sweet Asian spices float from the glass – on the palate it’s all fine-boned tannin and even, elegant flavour from start to crunchy swirling finish. A superb Shiraz.
Peter Forrestal, The Sunday Times 12th July 2009
Delightfully aromatic, densely flavoured, with plummy fruit and power with refinement. A bit young.
Winewise Volume 25 Number 3 August 2009
This latest release is yet another special wine. The dark berry and cherry aromas and flavours are totally bewitching. The palate seems to be in layers, and delivers varietal flavour that is pristine, reflecting perfect ripeness. The oak handling is exemplary. Excellent value. Outstanding.
Ken Gargett, Courier Mail 8th September 2009
….The shiraz is a massively underrated wine, even though it has an impressive record of awards. First made in 2002 and has good as that wine was, recent vintages are a step up in elegance, refinement and class. It is a wine in the Rhone style, rather than the typical Aussie bruiser….2007 is another star and slightly more plush than the ’06. Again, pepper and elegance but with a supple texture.
Graeme Phillips, Sunday Tasmanian 2nd August 2009
Dense, almost impenetrable purple-black colour before a fairly restrained nose with more expressive ripe, concentrated blackberry, spice and pepper notes on an elegantly structured and balanced palate, the finish rich and long lingering, the edge taken off it a little by a slightly furry coating of the aftertaste. Needs food.
Michelle Reedy, Who Weekly 10th August 2009
Cousins Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith have been making wine together for 20 years, and their experience shines through in this wonderful cool-climate shiraz from the Adelaide Hills. It’s delicious and ripe and most beautifully balanced.
Mike Burnett, Launceston Examiner 12th August 2009
The wine has intense colour, with pepper and spice characters moving through from the nose to the palate. The spice appears to come from both the fruit and oak. Ripe plum and berry fruit carry the wine, with the background oak adding a lift to complexity and flavour. This refined wine does not take over and lends itself to restaurant dining where a small group may have selected a range of food but wish o share a bottle or two.
Jeff Collerson, Daily Telegraph 1st September 2009
Following the outstanding ’05 and ’06 vintages, this has been named best Australian shiraz (over 10 quid) at the UK’s Decanter Wine Awards. Shaw and Smith insist their shirazes “need a few years” to reach their peak but this is drinking superbly now. Buy a few each for drinking now and for the cellar.
Rick Allen, North Shore Times 18th September 2009
Okay, after a $7 wine I'll slip in something a bit up-market, but still good value. Shaw and Smith is a benchmark Adelaide Hills winery - and this is a beauty. In fact I can't remember a better shiraz from them. It is a powerful wine, yet with lovely balance and it has an elegance about it. Flavours? Where do you start - blueberry, blackberry, aniseed and a touch of mint for starters. It's lovely now and will only get better with time if you're the patient type.
Ross Noble, Mt Barker Courier 16th September 2009
Celebrating their 20th vintage, Shaw and Smith at Balhannah have produced a classic encore to their very fine 2006 Shiraz. The Shaw and Smith Adelaide Hills Shiraz 2007 is no lightweight. It's an assemblage of crimson-colored, aromatic shiraz with an array of rich flavors on the palate balanced with unobtrusive but firmish tannins suggesting a long life if put away in a dark corner.
Chris Shanahan, Sunday Canberra Times 20th September 2009
... The benchmark Shaw + Smith sits at the very ripe, dense dark side of the cool-grown shiraz spectrum – an appealing, complex wine albeit bolder in style than the previous vintage.
Winsor Dobbin, Winsorschoice.blogspot.com 18th September 2009
If only all Australian shirazes were this good. Shaw and Smith use cool-climate Adelaide Hills fruit but still manage to produce a beautifully balanced medium-bodied wine that has plenty of juicy impact while at the same time offering elegance and hints of spice. French oak plays an understated support role with the vibrant fruit the star here. Deep red in colour, aromatic and appealing, this is a wine of concentration and quality that is drinking splendidly right now but will also cellar well.
Mike Frost, Courier Mail 29th September 2009
92 Points
There’s concentrated dark berry fruit on the nose and palate. Drink now with roast beef or in five years.
Robert Joseph, Decanter November 2009
Confusingly, from a region that has liked to promote itself as specialising in cool-climate whites, this is a brilliant Aussie take on the Rhône. Packed with New World dark berry fruit & pepper, with some lovely Gallic earthiness.
Jon Helmer, Bellarine Times 6th October 2009
Without doubt the best release to date in my opinion and that's saying something as the last two or three have been extremely good. The 2007 vintage is a vibrant wine displaying distinctive bright violets, pepper and spice characters. It is rich, ripe and juicy, yet elegant, shows a little more concentration, all wrapped up in a velvety smooth finish... dee-lish-us!
Tony Love, The Advertiser Top 100 Wines November 2009
96 Points
Maybe its global warming, but the future looks very bright for shiraz and cabernet in the warmer parts of the Adelaide Hills. Looking youthful purple/red in colour, lifted with a bouquet of blueberry/black fruit/dark plum, then a beautifully balanced rich, generous, plush yet elegant palate, layer on layer of flavour right to the very end.
James Halliday's Top 100 Wines, Weekend Australian Nov 09
'Best of the rest'
96 Points
The Australian Financial Review November 2009
Top 20//09
Philip Rich
Having celebrated its 20th anniversary this year, Shaw + Smith has followed up the superb 2006 Adelaide Hills Shiraz - which featured in my Top 20 last year - with an equally good, albeit slightly different, wine. From a warmer vintage than the 2006, this is denser and meatier, with aromas of dark fruits, hoisin, and integrated and subtle, cedary French oak. Medium- to full-bodied, the palate is both concentrated and lively, with firm yet perfectly ripe tannins rounding out a wine that should still be looking good in six to eight years from now.
The Australian Wine Annual
Jeremy Oliver
94 points
An excellent Rhoney style with delicious fruit, great balance and some pleasing complexity. With spicy, earthy and charcuterie-like understones, its peppery aromas of blackberries and sweet cedar/vanilla oak precede a smooth palate of medium to full weight bursting with ? like blackberry, dark cherry, dark plum-like fruit and knit with fine, bony, drying tannin. With chocolately undertones it’s spicy and savoury, finishing with pleasing length and balance. While it’s already very approachable, it will certainly age well.
The Penguin Good Australian Wine Guide 2010
Nick Stock
96 points
Strong black fruit and licorice aromas here; there’s richness and ripeness, complex spice and pepper too. The impressively structured palate has balance and measure, with aromas of blackberry leaf and raspberry fruit. Powerful yet measured palate articulated with plenty of tannin, a juicy and powerful wine with impressive weight and drive.
Gourmet Traveller Wine December/January 2010
Huon Hooke
For an almost-accidental wine, which was not in the plans when Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith started out, this shiraz has developed into a very impressive wine. The ’07 is more powerful and structured than the finer ’06, and has a distinctly meaty note to its spice and super-ripe blackberry aromas. It’s rich, full-bodied and profound, with lush fruit and plush texture, its oak immaculately interwoven with the fruit and grape tannins, resulting in a beautifully balanced wine with at least a 15-year cellaring potential.
Herald Sun
Des Houghton, 7th December 2009
A $32 bottle of shiraz has controversially outscored the legendary $550 Penfolds Grange in a new wine guide.
The Penguin 2010 Good Australian Wine Guide gives the 2007 Voyager Estate Shiraz 96 points but the 2004
Penfolds Grange only 95.
And the guide's author, Nick Stock, rates 19 other Australian and New Zealand shirazes ahead of Grange, including
the 2007 Shaw and Smith Shiraz ($40), the 2006 Seppelts St Peter's shiraz ($60) and the d'Arenberg 2006 Dead
Arm shiraz ($60).
The Melbourne-based wine judge also gives a $30 bottle of 2007 Church Road Reserve syrah, from Hawkes Bay in
New Zealand, equal marks to the Grange.
Alex Wright, 35, whose family owns the Voyager Estate vineyard in Western Australia's Margaret River, said the
rating was "mind-boggling ... very humbling and exciting".
The Financial Review 12th December 2009
Tim White 95 (96)/100
A bit pongy, in an excellent complex way, with spiciness and cool forest pips. Has a mouthwatering minerally aspect despite the fruit intensity. It’s long as well, with sublime building tannins. I prefer the ’06 but this will get better for at least another five years.
Newcastle Herald 30th December 2009
Cousins Michael Hill Smith and Martin Shaw continue to produce outstanding wines at their Adelaide Hills winery and this shiraz is in that category. It is dense garnet in colour and brings forth aromas of ripe raspberries and tobacco leaf. Silky smooth, profound plum flavour glides onto the front palate and dark chocolate, mocha coffee and ripe black cherry fruit characters merge with nutty oak on the middle palate. The finish has soft pepperminty tannins. It is available in fine wine stores and on shawandsmith.com
DRINK WITH: veal and olive ragu, scotch fillet steak and mushrooms or slow-cooked shoulder of lamb with Mediterranean vegetables.
Rating: *****
TOP SHELF
Sumptuous 1st January 2010
The cousins Shaw and Hill-Smith are thoroughly determined to lead the charge of finesse and distinction in Adelaide Hills Shiraz. The structure and definition here is impressive, delivering black and red fruits with a fine dusting of exotic spice.
Australian Doctor 29th January 2010
Dr Peter Hay
Wines of the Week
* Star Recommendation
This beautifully balances, perfumed, silky smooth, spice-laden shiraz from the Adelaide Hills is one of the best I drank last year.
Epicure, The Age Tuesday 2nd February 2010
Jeni Port
Vintages of a Lifetime – Jeni Port nominates the 10 wines you really must try before you die.
The “new” Aussie shiraz – the one that doesn’t scream and shout – looks a little like this. It’s lost none of its exuberance but it does hail from a cooler climate (Adelaide Hills), where over-ripeness doesn’t carry the same weighty problems of other areas and where “elegant” as a descriptor isn’t a dirty word. Current vintage: 2008. Dream team: Seek out the ’02, a stunning year for the first S+S shiraz.
Wine Spectator Website 2nd April 2010
Harvey Steiman
91 Points
This silky red is lighter than most Shiraz, creating a deft balance of creamy raspberry and currant flavors against polished tannins, lingering effectively on the refined finish. Drink now through 2017.