2021 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier
Community Tasting Note
Dr S Likes this wine:
Wednesday, August 9, 2023 - Finesse and intricacy sum up this lighter-weight edition of SV. The pale red rim, then garnet outer circle of colour are tell tale signs, to an extent, that this is a more elegant year.
The almost ethereal, wildy spicey and complex nose is one of the two striking features of this vintage. The aroma wheel keeps spinning. Pepper, charcuterie, a dusting of oak. Then dried rose petals, leaf and dried herb, with raspberry, darker cherries and deeper meat notes. Uber fragrant.
The palate dances and swirls too. It’s only light-medium bodied but it doesn’t need to be more, for mine. What it has is subtle intensity and poise. The tannin/fruit balance is at once intricate and effortless. I found it totally compelling, coming back again and again to search for more answers - but it kept waltzing away around my palate.
I don’t detect the greenery or grassiness that others see. Leafy yes, but not mulchy. I’m self conscious of my strong affiliation for this wine, winery and it’s creator that might deceive or filter the senses. But in cooler and relatively wet years like 2021, 2017 and 2012, my starting point is concern if not scepticism that the wine will live up to standard that kinder, benign years have set. I think 2021 makes the grade, for its beauty and style, although it’s shy of the top rank (a pretty high standard, in my tasting book).
It’s a triumph of viticulture, rigorous fruit selection and delicate wine making. Is it heavily worked? Not sure. Yes there’s whole bunches. Clonakilla were early adoptors of this technique, not least due to a desire to fashion Burgundian elements in the wine, and remain masterful unlike most who fiddle with whole bunch.
But the intricacy comes, for me, from skilful blending of different blocks on the Clonakilla site, that have differing clones, vine age, aspect and nose rings (one of those points is bogus, I think). And are matured in barrels and puncheons from different French coopers, with differing barrel age. Having been lucky once to taste those different components in the pre-blending scoring stage, it’s quite a mosiac from which the Cka team can pick to make up the final wine.
How will it age? A tricky one. The SV tends to put on ‘weight’ and grow in the bottle as it ages. The 2017 is the closest analogue I can think of to the 2021. It looked slender on release. 2017 now looks to be growing in depth. It might be a slightly better vintage but I reckon the 2021 is the better wine. In ten years I think it will be majestically complex, graceful and still fresh. Not an 06 or 08 or 15 or 19, but divine regardless. That’s if you can resist drinking what you have now.
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