Shiraz the Wheelwright, Henschke 2022

The 2022 The Wheelwright Single Vineyard Shiraz is highly perfumed with purple flowers and lifted spice. This is loaded with pomegranate, raspberry, red licorice, pink peppercorn (in that attractive citrussy way that pink peppercorns can bring) and green olive tapenade. This is structural and yet juicy, savory (tannins) but sweet (fruit) and incredibly persistent and lingering. This offers immense pleasure now, but it will, like all the Henschke wines, evolve positively in the cellar for decades to come. The 2022 vintage brings such delicacy and freshness to this wine. I love it. Drink: 2026-2042

Ungrafted Shiraz planted by Cyril in 1968 at 500 m altitude in the Henschke Eden Valley Vineyard, on contours. It was trendy to plant on the contours (keyline water management, avoiding erosion and keeping the water on the property). But it makes putting the vines on a VSP quite a challenge because pulling the wires tight is a problem. They put in stretches of VSP and put a strainer in, with straight-ish lines. This wine was first made in 2015, released in 2018. Sandy loam over sandstone soils, with a bit of schist. This is acidic soil, so it’s different to the red/brown earths of Mount Edelstone and Hill of Grace. Under the sandy loam there is a prismatic clay, so the roots go quite deep, making the vines vigorous. Complex aromatics on the nose, with a sweet cherry and berry fruitiness as well as hints of mulch and dried herbs, with fine spiciness. The palate is quite distinctive, with some fresh minty notes fringing the sweet cherry and plum notes, as well as some blackberry richness, and tanginess on the finish. It’s fleshy but tightwound, with a lovely primary fruit drive, finishing long and spicy, with a savoury earthy and herby quality in the background. Quite tannic, suggesting a bright future ahead of it, because there’s enough fruit there to evolve nicely. The fruit is just lovely.

Transparent garnet – not nearly as dense as stereotypical Barossa Shiraz. Heady, ‘composed’, settled, integrated aromas soar out of the glass. Sweet palate entry with a note of dried grasses. There’s a little leather, too. This seems like a wine you could enjoy already. It leaves a wonderfully soothing trace in the throat, and lasts for several minutes! There is real freshness and delicacy here. Drink: 2026-2040

This distinctive wine has been an annual favourite of mine from the time it was first released. The vineyard was planted in the Mount Lofty Ranges by Cyril Henschke in 1968 to mark the 100th anniversary of Henschke. This is such a lovely wine, brimming with bright red fruits supported by a fine, bright and lively acidity, fine chalky tannins and a neatly implemented oak. Has a beautifully seductive mouthfeel with tremendous depth and concentration of Shiraz. This is the most southern of the three single vineyards and comes in after Edelstone and Hill of Grace. It’s quite different from those wines. Has beautiful peppery violet fragrances with stacks of red fruit. Matured in 10% new and 90% seasoned French oak hogsheads for 20 months before blending and bottling. The Wheelwright, first released to commemorate 150 years of Henschke family winemaking, pays tribute to founder, winemaker Johann Christian Henschke a skilled stonemason and wheelwright. He was among the first generation of the early German Silesian community and established the family winery in 1868. Drink: 2026-2056