Wes Pearson’s excellent new 2022 Shiraz + more Juxtaposed goodness

Buying out your business partners and taking over a company takes a lot of commitment (or madness), and it takes even more balls to do so in the wine industry during an oversupply period.

Which makes Dr Wes Pearson either mad or brave.

Wes’ wines have featured prominently here on Australian Wine and Drinks Reviews since the very early days of his famous upside-down Dodgy Bros labels, and watching the evolution of these McLaren Vale wines has been fun. Now, the project is all grown up, and Wes is taking things up a notch (indeed have a squizz at the Juxtaposed website to see that) by taking full ownership of Juxtaposed with his partner Cassie.

These new releases bleed passion, too. This fits, given that Juxtaposed is Wes’ passion project. By day, he’s a senior scientist at the AWRI, and Juxtaposed is the highly technical (but also minimalist) expression of where a winemaking day job crosses over into after-hours.

I like after-hours wines and these challenging McLaren Vale drinks (even if they are ridiculously hard to photograph).

Juxtaposed Wait Vineyard Sandy Cnr Block Shiraz 2022

This comes off a sandy corner of the Wait Block in Blewitt Springs. That’s Grenache country in most minds, but I often like the Shiraz from this block the best. Amazing purple colour, and evocative purple wine, too. Black jubes, swathes of inky fruit, grainy tannins, blackness and deep, dark molten fruit. But despite all that darkness and black concentration, this has a soft plushness, too, and a licoricey purple fruit generosity that feels rich and sometimes juicy, too. It’s McLaren Vale Shiraz of light and shade, delivered at a very fair price.

Best drinking: good now or in a decade no probs. 18.5/20, 94/100. 14.4%, $45.

Juxtaposed Lacey Vineyard Fiano 2023

I need to nail my Fiano colours to the wall. Unless you give Fiano a bit of skin contact/textural work, it makes pretty forgettable wine. This is not a forgettable Fiano. From the Lacey Vineyard, Wes calls this ‘a more textural wine than I’ve made in the past,’ and it’s only a shame there isn’t much to go around (200 six packs). It’s a nutty, phenolic-shaped Fiano that powers through with this charge of preserved lemon tang that is irrepressible. It’s biting, long and gently waxy, again delivering waves of savoury layers beyond just lemon-rind fruit, even if it drifts into firmness. A grown-up Fiano.

Best drinking: nowish, no rush. 18/20, 93/100. 12.2%, $33.

Juxtaposed Old Vine Grenache 2022

Sitting below the single vineyard Grenache range, this is a blend of Smart Vineyard, Wait Vineyard & Dom’s Block fruit. Matured for 17 months in barrel, 550 six packs produced. Like the Shiraz, it smells of all sorts of things – there’s a richer treacly red fruit ripeness in there, some caramel, cooked cherry, dark spice, and something boysenberried, too. It get a bit spirity on the finish but man a lot is going on here. All sorts of layered cherry liqueur flavour. That warmth is the only thing holding it back from greatness.

Best drinking: over the next ten years. 18/20, 93/100. 14.2%, $40.