2024 Paringa Estate, Estate Series Shiraz, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
There are very few boutique producers in the world whose wines deliver as much immediacy and reward as Paringa’s. The glimpse of a Paringa label raises my mood immeasurably, in part because I have been a fan for 25 years and because the wines are always stunningly assembled and delicious. This good-looking Shiraz is a prime case in point. It tastes like no other wine made from this grape on Earth, and yet while it is clearly a Shiraz, and most likely from an excellent maritime climate, the gloss, precision, and splendour in the glass is textbook Paringa. Toothsome, luxurious, adroit and heady, it gathers complexity from 10 months spent in new and seasoned oak barriques, yet the spice and earth notes are derived in the vineyard, so its GPS authenticity is guaranteed. I have always posited that Lindsay, and his son Jamie McCall make Pinot with Shiraz hands and Shiraz with Pinot hands. And this mantra adds a degree of mystery and exoticism to both varieties. While there are definite Auguste Clape notes on the nose, and Pierre Gonon hints on the palate, the rest of this vehicle seems more slippery and buoyant than most Volnays! While your mind boggles, you head straight back for another sip, finally concluding, as I have over the course of two and a half decades, that this wine is not an amalgam of others’ efforts, but a benchmark Paringa – a model all its own. Add geometric tannins and a whisper of Mornington sea spray freshness, and you have a mesmerising concoction guaranteed to enchant the senses.