Current Releases
Australian
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Photography by Adrian Lander
| 2009 Semillon Sauvignon Blanc |
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2009 was a warm vintage in the Canberra District. The cool Murrumbateman nights balanced the warm days, slowing the ripening process and enabling the vines to produce this zesty dry white, perfect for sipping in the warmer months. Light, bright and zippy across the tongue with a crisp finish. |
| 2009 Riesling |
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The summer of 2009 was a belter, even so the cool Murrumbateman nights worked in our favour, slowing the ripening and producing fruit with complex, delicate aromas and perfectly balanced natural acids. A fine, pure aroma of summer herbs and white flowers with citrus and stone fruit notes in the background. Plenty of ripe fruit on the palate with a clean, zesty finish.
“Terrific wine. Tart with lime juice and lemon sherbert. Chalky and fennel-like through the finish. Lots of length, and a touch of grip.
Heaps of aroma. Seriously dry. Incredibly pure. The flavour flows like adjectives. Or superlatives. On and on. Reckon I might be a fan of this.
Rated : 94 Points”
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| 2008 Viognier |
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After the tiny, frost effected 2007 vintage, the vines came back brilliantly in 2008 giving us good crops of perfectly ripe fruit. The Viognier is our flagship white. It is full bodied for a white wine with potent honeysuckle, pear, ginger and apricot aromas. It shows the classic mouth coating Viognier texture balanced by a refreshing acidity.
“Highly textural. Obviously, but seductively, oaked. Cedarwood and ginger, toast and honeysuckle.
Beautifully creamy mouthfeel before an exquisitely spicy finish …this is an outstanding wine. Gorgeous aftertaste.
Gorgeous aromatics. Gorgeous flavour - and the persistence to back it all up.
Rated : 95 Points”
“Crystalline and mineral, this savoury young viognier is fractionally raw-edged in its youth, but has the length and refinement
to settle down with time in the bottle. Backed by dusty, musky scents of cloves and cinnamon, its nutty bouquet of apricot,
melon and tangerine precedes an unctuous, concentrated and fleshy palate ... It finishes long, dry and nutty, with a lingering
core of bright flavour. 95 points”
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| 2009 Viognier Nouveau |
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Viognier Nouveau brings you Viognier at its freshest. Fermented in stainless steel and bottled early, this wine captures the vibrancy of the Viognier fruit, amplified by the warmth of the 2009 vintage, in all its youthful glory.
Rates high for deliciousness. Drink it now.
“… very easy to drink and lovely because it’s super fresh with bright crunchy fruit to the fore, plenty of spice, with a hint of apricot on the palate and a clean finish.”
“It sure is fresh. And delicious. As it is intended to be. It’s stony and spicy, figgy and ginger-y. It just manages to avoid alcohol warmth and while there are flavours
of apricot, it isn’t dominated by them and nor is it nectar-ish. There’s a bit of subtlety in this, even given its exuberance. Nice wine.”
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| 2008 Hilltops Shiraz |
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The 2008 vintage at Hilltops didn’t quite stick to the script with a cool February followed by a gloriously warm March. The vines took the topsy-turvy weather in their stride producing a wine of intense colour, striking aroma and generous, full-flavoured palate. Loaded with ripe blackberry fruit pushed along by a late surge of blackcurrant and spice, the warmth of the autumn radiates through every part of this wine. Great now if you love a powerful red, but leave some in the cellar for five to ten years to taste its full potential.
“Ah yes, what a joy of a drink. This has the vibrancy and spiciness that has me reaching straight for the word ‘exotic’.
It’s all cherries and plums, mint and licorice, and while you’d hardly call it intense, it’s definitely high in charm.
French oak gives it a gentle nudge, and everything about the wine is pure and clean.
Very happy with this release; it’s a beauty. Rated : 93 Points Drink : 2009 – 2014”
“Dark shiraz fruit, with blackberry, roast meat and a gentle spice background; medium-bodied with serious intent,
the tannins are ripe, the fruit juicy and the finish, long and savoury; lovely harmony.
Rating 94 To 2015”
“Another great Hilltops Shiraz, this shows plenty of depth in the glass – nice richness and quietly brooding.
Dark toasted spices, anise, ripe plums and berries all swirled around amid decent chewy tannins.
Drink now or over the next six years for the best results. 93 points”
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| 2008 O'Riada Shiraz |
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The 2008 O’Riada Shiraz is made from fruit selected from four vineyards around the villages of Murrumbateman and Hall. The winemaking included the use of pre-ferment maceration, whole bunches, warm extended ferments, 6% co-fermented Viognier and twelve months maturation in French oak, 30% new. The warmth of the 2008 vintage shines through with a rich aroma of blackberry, dark cherry, rose petal and spice; wonderfully fragrant with a silky, medium bodied palate. Drink now after decanting or cellar for five to ten years.
“It’s different to the flagship Clonakilla shiraz-viognier. Stalkier, meatier. It’s also from a very good red (Canberra) vintage.
It’s an easy-going mid-weight in terms of intensity and it has lots of toasty, meaty, sappy influences...it’s cherried and spicy,
smoky and very fine through the finish. It’s a wine where the flavours seem to have been picked up and placed into the wine
with care and deliberation. It needs more time to grow more comfortable within its own skin, but I have no doubt of its quality - within its style. Rated : 94 Points
“Gee, I really dig this medium-bodied wine – it’s full of exquisite cool-climate fruit and incredibly perfumed. Spicy with a sprinkling of black pepper, a core of bright plum fruit that follows through on the palate and quite savoury with cleansing, tangy acidity and soft fine tannins.”
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| 2008 Shiraz Viognier |
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2008 was a great vintage in the Canberra District. After a cool February, March rolled in with a series of gloriously warm days.
The Shiraz and Viognier vines in our estate vineyards made the most of the autumn sun, producing wines with genuinely ripe fruit
aromas and generous, rounded tannins.
Winemaking Each vineyard block is kept separate through the winemaking and maturation process until final blend selections are made prior to bottling. Winemaking includes a three day pre-ferment maceration, 20% whole bunches, extended warm open ferments (averaging three weeks on skins) and twelve months maturation in French oak, 30% new from a variety of French coopers: Francois Freres, Taransaud, Sirugue and Mercurey. Increasingly indigenous yeasts are use in preference to cultured yeasts. The wines are racked aeratively twice during their time in barrel.
The 2008 includes 6% co-fermented Viognier.
“As expected the wine is young and buoyant, with a highly fragrant perfume of red fruit, fresh blackberry, violets, roast meat and a little tar; the palate reveals the true potential of this superb wine,
with a cascading array of flavours and thrillingly silky tannin, poised acidity and a peacock’s tail on the very long and precise palate. Rating 97 points To 2025”
“Building towards a crescendo of richness and strength, this is a stellar wine of rare balance, poise and elegance. Its floral, musky and spicy bouquet of pristine black and red berries,
ground pepper and cedar/vanilla oak precede a silky-smooth, supple and seamless palate whose piercingly intense berry/plum flavours, briary undertones and seasoned oak deliver
exceptional length and harmony. Precisely focused, it finishes quite savoury and spicy, with emphatic depth and presence. 97 points 2020-2028+”
“The rise in status of this wine over the past ten years has been phenomenal. It is now a contender for the mantle of ‘Australia’s best red wine'.
“What is Australia’s best red wine? It’s a totally subjective question but some would put this Canberra District shiraz viognier on the short list.
The 2008, although due for September release, is included here because demand is always high. To secure some, it might be wise to register interest
with your wine shop now. Less structured and more precocious than the great ’07, it’s deliciously subtle and complex. Aromas of plums, raspberries,
gentle peppery spice, milk chocolate and restrained florals introduce a beautifully silky, seamless palate. Smooth flavours weave through a long,
superfine mouthful, resting on very soft tannins. It develops very well with breathing.
Five Stars.”
“Extraordinary colour, deep magenta red with loads of pip and plums with a distinct Canberra spice note. A touch of dried herbs, superb oak integration,
plush yet powerful tannins, layered, complex but not so much that it can’t be savoured now, although it’ll be much better in a few years.”
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| 2006 Syrah |
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Every year at Clonakilla we make a small batch of straight Syrah from our Murrumbateman vineyard.
Normally we blend it into the Shiraz Viognier just prior to bottling. This year we decided to bottle the Syrah separately.
Whole berries were fermented warm by their own native yeasts. Three weeks maceration on skins stabilised colour and took
the rough edges off the tannins. 20 months maturation in French oak, 40% new, delivered another level of refinement and a touch of finesse.
This is a serious, complex, alluring cool-climate Syrah: Potent spice aromas, red fruits, smoked meats and black pepper lead onto a finely textured,
medium bodied palate. Intriguing now, careful cellaring over five to ten years will reveal more of the mystery.
" If you have a Clonakilla collection on the go then you must add this wine to it.
It's a Clonakilla syrah minus the viognier - this syrah usually makes its way into the Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier icon wine.
Whole bunches and wild yeasts have been used and of course it's been matured in the best French oak. It's quite a fascinating wine.
It's lighter than you might expect, intensely focussed, juicy and earthen and persistent. It has elements of bitterness and elements of gunmetal,
though the main strike is of cherried, cranberried fruit. For all its lightness it still manages to make a powerful statement,
mainly because it's so articulate and defined. I suspect that in twenty years time it will be mesmerising. Drink: 2016-2028. 95 points.”
Clonakilla’s shiraz-viognier blend from the Canberra district is one of Australia’s greatest red wines.
A tiny proportion of Viognier and whole bunch fermentation give its core of cool-climate shiraz French-accented
finesse and complexity. This Syrah, a 100% shiraz, follows a different path. It’s made without whole bunch and
Viognier components, using more traditional Australian red wine methods. The result still has elegant fragrance,
but it’s a more forceful type of wine that’s still raw and immature. Earthy, slightly wild, dark fruit aromas, meaty notes,
spice, new oak and a hint of leather give the nose an Aussie slant, but the palate retains typical Clonakilla silkiness, albeit in a warmer,
more powerful vein. It’s persistent, with excellent texture, and fine ripe tannins.
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