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That Swinney’s Syrah has been described by one writer as “more Hermitage than Grange” gives you a clue where the style and quality level is pitched. Already a WA benchmark, the Syrah is hand-harvested from select parcels in the Wilsons Pool vineyard and from 30-year-old vines in the Powderbark vineyard. Unlike the Grenache and Mourvèdre, the Syrah is trellised—although there are plans afoot for some single-stake Syrah. The sites are planted to various clones, including 470, Waldron and Jack Mann’s heritage mass-selection Syrah. Each clone gives a different bunch structure. Combined with the Estate’s use of shade cloth to shield the fruit from the harsh afternoon rays, this helps build layers of structural complexity in the final wine. The cloth also creates soft, mottled light, lowers the temperature in the bunch zone, and preserves freshness, spice and typicity (varietal and regional) in the fruit.
As always, the quality is in the details: berries were hand-sorted into small wooden and stainless-steel fermenters via gravity, and the wine includes 22% whole bunches to maintain freshness while providing a robust frame for the lustrous fruit. The 2024 spent 11 days on skins before being pressed directly to 600-litre fine-grained demi-muids. The Shiraz is the only wine to see any new oak, and just 8% in this vintage. The fruit intensity here is beautifully measured by long, sinewy tannins and compelling energy. “We’re not afraid of having some structure in the wines,” say Mann. “We make wines with spine. They should make you hungry.”