The 2024 Lamella Shiraz features 100% whole bunches, as usual, and the wine offers a profusion of tannins, spice, layers of fruit and length. This is gravelly and mineral, with ferrous tannins, graphite and dried rose petals woven through the finish. There is also a note of raw cocoa. This is a wine that you feel as much as you taste and smell. The tannins linger on the palate and help the flavors remain firmly wedged in the memory. I can still taste from one sip to the next; the bridge between mouthfuls doesn't need to be bridged by memory—it is viscerally there. Notes of licorice, fennel, caraway and timut pepper (in that fresh, grapefruit, black tea, sage, resin, pink grapefruit again, delicate, simple/singular way) coat the finish. 14.9% alcohol, sealed under natural cork and wax.

From the ancient vines of the Stonegarden vineyard. Deeply hued. This has enchanting aromatic detail, with red fruits flitting above the base fruit tones of dark plum, blueberry and black fruits. Hints of sweet spice, raspberry coulis, graphite, dark cocoa nibs, an expression of citrus peel, coal dust, kombu, rose petal and crushed granite. The palate is crushingly long and harmonious, with stunning fruit purity. The flavours stretch out with a filigreed granitic tannin architecture and a seamless, mineral cadence that provides pitch-perfect momentum on its journey. These '24 Standish releases have serious cellaring potential, but this one might take the cake. This is the most impressive wine that I have seen under the 'Lamella' label: vital, harmonious and wonderfully composed.

The source is Stonegarden Vineyard in Eden Valley. The loftier site makes for a distinct levity and prettiness from 2024. It pops and pours with beauty, but a two day decant/open is worthy too.

A wine of width and length, a distinct spread in the palate and noticeable persitance, but in that, a finesse of tannin, a beauty of perfume, a nipped and tucked fruit profile and a lavish array of spice, savoury elements and herbal lift. A hyped-up perfume opens the wine; florals, dark fruits, game meat, exotic spice. The palate so succulent, lashed with inky plum, mulberry, rich cherry, brambly blackberries, black pepper, Italianate herbal nuance and liquid graphite minerality. It feels impossibly long, wonderfully compact and tense, deeply rich, and somewhat cool in the sense of things. A tour de force of shiraz. Honest to goodness.