2015 The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz

The 2015 The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz is now 10 years from its harvest, and the wine has developed beautiful soft leather, dark chocolate, mulberry and peppercorn notes. It features a combination of French, American and Hungarian oak. The wine is perfectly comfortable here, sedate, complex and settled. It's a beautiful wine and one that gets better and inevitably softer as it gets older. It features 20% Eden Valley fruit, although that number varies each year depending on the seasonal conditions. I really appreciate the tannins here; they're pulverized, soft and fresh. 14.5% alcohol, sealed under natural cork.

Limpid ruby. A complex and finely detailed bouquet evokes red and dark fruit preserves, pipe tobacco, smoky oak and candied rose and a succulent herb nuance builds in the glass. Offers bitter cherry, mulberry, cola, floral pastille and spicecake flavors, along with hints of vanilla and mocha. The smoky note recurs on an impressively long, floral- and spice-driven finish that's framed by smooth, even tannins.

Beautifully polished with burnished tannins and fully integrated varietal ingredients. Quite aromatic with a hint of one of the spices in a Fisherman's Friend throat lozenge and sweet leather but overall delightfully subtle. Very long and particularly throat-warming. Not the sort of wine you would sip without food but a triumph for those looking for something to accompany a strongly flavoured dish – or even blue cheese. (JR)