Dense dark fruit flavors mingle with gunpowder tea, black pepper and dried herbal notes, showing plenty of gusto and dense, chewy tannins to support the intensity. Reveals cedar and spice shavings on the finish. Drink now through 2034. 617 cases made, 70 cases imported.??–MW??Region: Australia / McLaren Vale Select to Add

Made from the top 1% of Gemtree's shiraz production. Three years in French oak. No fining or filtration. All the best treatment, as the winery sees it, and then thrown to the cork wolves. It's a monumental wine in all respects, thick with fruit and oak, the power of blueberry and blackberry flavour afforded tremendous intensity. Peppermint notes add lift, sawdusty oak adds spunk, and rivers of tannin set the wine on a firm course. Length is as confident as everything else about the wine. Indeed the momentum of quality here is quite something.

Aged for 36 months in 100% new oak, the 2008 Obsidian Shiraz displays a deep garnet-purple color and aromas of warm blackberries, mulberries and dried plums with a fragrant, spicy undercurrent of licorice, tar, fennel seeds plus tree bark, touches of toast and cedar. Generously fruited, rich and opulent in the mouth, it has good backbone of medium-firm chewy tannins and crisp acid, finishing long and layered. Drink it now to 2020+. Importer: Pelican Brands, Napa, CA; www.pelican-brands.com