A deep garnet colour. The wine is an exercise in power and intensity: Black olives and blueberries with sweet cedary oak and clove studded spice. McLaren Vale regionality still expresses itself with chocolate and hints of red fruits and as ever: an earthen, almost cool bitumen/blue stone undertone. The palate unwraps layer after layer: chocolate, rich plum, blueberry with such an even spread of persisting tannin. Length, length, length before the iron fist closes tight inside the velvet glove to signify that time will reward the drinker further (such a cliche, but truly it is appropriate here). An exemplar shiraz