2006 Clarendon Hills Syrah Onkaparinga

Community Tasting Notes

Community Tasting Notes (6) Avg Score: 90.6 points

  • Cooked dark cherry and candied sugar cane on the nose make me worried already. This gets confirmed on the palate. Lots of dark fruit, some licorice, iodine medicinal notes. Far too sweet for my palate.

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  • Classic ripe plums, blue berries, vanilla oak with black peppers and bbq meats on the nose. It is a meal by itself. The same aromatic profile is found in the rich and deep palate. The spicy and sweet blue and black fruits dominate the mid-palate which is full and extensive. The structure is huge and rounded but it is not in your face, there is sufficient acidity to prevent it from becoming fat and flabby. Smooth transitions from entry to finish which has a touch of tannins to stretch it for 30 seconds. Compared to the 2005 vintage, this is more fruit forward and less spices. At its peak now and will continue to drink well for the next few years.

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  • Deep, dark, thick black color with slight garnet hues. Really gets into your nostrils the moment it's cracked open - aromas of blackberry, plum, mocha and dark chocolate. Quite complex, but that's expected for a 15-year-old wine. Tannins are still very much alive - ripe and well-developed. Acidity is there, but not as crisp as seen in younger vintages. The element that's most dominant here is the chunky richness of the fruit. Yes, you get that gaminess from Syrah, but you just can't past how utterly sweet this tastes. A signature style of Clarendon, seen across all there wines.

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  • This is an odd wine. Advertises itself as Syrah rather than Shiraz, but the main French influence is brett rather than elegance, cool climate pepper, emphasis on terroir, etc. It tastes of typical Shiraz blueberry with a hefty dose of barnyard, savoury meaty notes, somewhat smokey bacon - brett, basically. It's quite sweet, with medium to mild tannins blending into some stems. Taste is fairly long, but it's a bit sickly. Quite peculiar to have the combination of sweet fruit with brett.

    I don't want to repeat the experience in this form. I love bretty Cote Rotie, thick almost like bacon gravy, but dumping a bag of sugar and blueberry syrup into the mix isn't an improvement.

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  • Perfume, rich juicy dark ash and berries. Leafy, sustained and minty sweetness. Elegant and powerful, textural and savoury leather. Lovely depth, effortless and well-resolved!

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  • Decanted for an hour. Paired with Angus Steak. Nose was extremely good with aromas of dark cherries and berries. If were to be judged on the nose itself, would have scored it 95. Slightly disappointed with the palate after the fantastic nose. The palate gives the same aromas as the nose but there was less structure and the wine was all over the place (think typical Aussie fruit bomb). More so than other Clarendon wines I've tried. But the main issue was that the wine was quite syrupy and cloying. The finish and fruit were very long and good. But as a side note, this is the first Clarendon syrah I've tried. The previous bottles were all grenaches. All in all, a fantastic wine that's just a little over exuberant.

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