'Heretic' bottle image
'Heretic' bottle image

‘Heretic’ 2023

Tasting Notes

More than the sum of its parts, 'Heretic' is a super blend of ‘alternative’ varieties, bringing Iberian flavours and savoury goodness to the wine, with a soupcon of that McLaren Vale classic, Shiraz. A wine for all seasons, 'Heretic' has a cherry blossom nose with dark fruits on the soft, savoury palate. It finishes nice and tight and focused and has a lovely gravelly grainy structure and length.

Gold Medal (96 pts) 2023 Melbourne Wine Awards
Gold Medal (96 Pts) 2023 Australia Alternative Varieties Wine Show
Trophy (Best Red Blend) 2023 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show
Medallion Winner Best Other Red Blend 2024 Winewise Championship 

Vegan friendly

We had a very wet winter (between June and September) and a cool wet spring, which tested the mettle of our in-house viticulturist/ vigneron, AKA Joch. As a result of these trying conditions, vintage started later than in previous years (we picked Chardonnay on the 15th February in #v2023) and we had much smaller volumes than in 2022 or 2021. We had a few warm days in January and February and picked the whites quite quickly, then about 10mm of rain in early March which settled the dust and stopped picking for a little while. Despite the smaller vintage, the quality of grapes was excellent across both red and white varieties.

We pick and ferment the 4 varieties separately so they can develop their own varietal characters before they get blended prior to a little bit of oak maturation and bottling. Joch picks on sugar and flavour ripeness, which of course varies with all varieties.

  • 2023 Australian Alternative Varieties Wine Show

    Best Red Blend

  • 2024 Winewise Championship Medallion Winners

    Best Other Red blend                       2023 Battle of Bosworth Heretic Touriga Mataro Graciano Shiraz

  • Halliday Wine Companion

    A blend of 42/32/20/6% touriga nacional/mataro/graciano/shiraz. Floral and grapey, with blueberry, wild cherry, violet, rose talc, Earl Grey tea, graphite and lavender, this is a wine of immediate appeal and quiet ease that belies its complexity. Comparisons are inevitably inadequate, but this is a fair identikit portrait of quality gamay – a young Fleurie Beaujolais, perhaps. Persistent, with chalky, quietly nagging skinsy tannins, this is an absolute delight, especially with the gentlest chill.

    93 points

    Marcus Ellis, 29 January 2024

  • The Wine Front

     

    A little waft of wetsuit, dried rose, cherry, bergamot, thyme and spice, iron filings. It’s medium-bodied, a little ferrous and stony, blue fruit and cherry, orange peel, crisp acidity, with a lively finish of excellent length. Well, the blend here works to excellent effect, and the wine in glass offers charm and a big point of difference to many from the region. I really like it. It’s juicy, drinkably complex, and savoury/saline all at once.

     

    93 points Gary Walsh

Technical Details

Vineyards: Dutchmans and Dentons

Picking Date: Touriga April 4 2023, Mataro April 4 2023, Graciano 23 March 2023, Shiraz 29 March 2023

Alc/Vol: 14.0%

Bottling Date: 24 August 2023