Meadowbank’s award-winning past with Syrah dates to the estate’s oldest vines (planted in 1974). In 2011, these vines of an unknown clone famously led to the Jimmy Watson-winning Glaetzer-Dixon Mon Père Shiraz. Alongside a portion from those 50-year-old vines, fruit was picked by hand from a more recently planted (2015) north-facing block of clone 6V29W. All the vines are rooted in Meadowbank’s soils of loose sand and sandstone over dark brown coffee rock (rich in iron oxides and organic matter). Although the vines are technically farmed conventionally, the team has effectively practised organics on these blocks for two decades.
2023 was a very good year for Meadowbank, with relatively stable weather throughout giving a typically slow build-up to the season before warm, sunny days prevailed over the perfume that makes it moreishly drinkable. Highly refined tannins strike a balance with the punch of acid that speaks of the cool climate in which these grapes grew.