Review: Yangarra King’s Wood Shiraz 2021. A Vale Archetype.

Yangarra just makes great Grenache, but the Shiraz can be equally grand – just like the Kings Yangarra King’s Wood Shiraz 2021.

It’s the winemaking that makes the difference here. The biodynamic Yangarra Vineyard is a known quantity, with this Shiraz coming from block 12 (SE facing and on ironstone soils). It might be the power of suggestion, but I see the ferrousness in the wine too. 20% whole bunches make it into the fermenter too, and some parcels spend 30 days on skins. Wild fermented too, and the juice spends 16 months in large 25hl foudre (50% new and the rest one and two-year-old).

You know what else is notable? The 5.9g/L total acidity (TA) and 13.5% alcohol. Both numbers tell me these grapes were picked earlier than you might see in the Vale and with less (if any) tartaric acid added in the winery. It’s an important distinction because plenty of Aussie Shiraz is picked late, with low acidity, and then adjusted in the winery. Added acid can stick out like the proverbial dog’s balls too, an unmistakable tang that is just distracting. Acid adjustments aren’t necessarily bad (especially if it’s small amounts at the crusher) but hey, if you don’t need additions, your fruit is probably better anyway.

And this Shiraz just feels right and good. Great colour – a lovely purple-red. It smells alive too – some of that McLaren Vale tilled earth, a wave of purple fruit, oak, a distant background coffee element but there. Same again on the palate, all purple berries and coffee and a grainy but flowing finish.

Nailed it. There is such a wonderful open-hearted volume to this. It feels generous and welcoming, yet so well poised and right.

Best drinking: now, and for a decade. 18.7/20, 95/100. 13.5%, $68. Yangarra website. Would I buy it? Shit yes.