Angus Hughson – Luxury Collection Review – WinePilot.Com

96 Points
Drink 2024 – 2036

The Beauty and The Beast – Hentley Farm’s two popular shiraz although each with their own unique style. Different vintages work for different wines but for 2018 my money is on The Beast, a name that it matches up to particularly well in this warm vintage.
There is nothing subtle here and the wine flirts with just being too big, but then its supreme balance kicks in. It explodes with tarry, licorice and blackberry jam fruit with touches of spice and roasted meats all underpinned by generous new oak. The palate is similarly rich and flavoursome, lashings of ripe dark fruit with muscular tannins providing a particularly long and strong finish. Barossa Valley on steroids.

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95 Points

Drink 2024 – 2035.

The surprise package of the 2020 Hentley Farm releases is the von Kasper Cabernet Sauvignon. Yes that’s right Cabernet Sauvignon – relatively rare in the Barossa but when right makes some of the region’s greatest wines.
The key to this wine is its razor edge balance between powerful fruit and refined tannins that make it a serious ageing proposition. It is deeply coloured and instantly shows generous sweet cassis fruits with a faint leafy edge supported by plenty of balanced oak. The palate is dry, and a little closed for the moment, with its powerful fruit would up in a blanket of tannins. There is superb fruit purity and focus suggesting it will get better and better over the next decade as a start. Pull it out in 10 years with a simple rack of lamb.

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94 Points

Drink 2024 – 2032

Grenache can start out a little shy when young and this is a good case in point. On Day 1 it was very shy – with its brooding black cherry, earth and spicy fruits reserved and subtle. But slowly the bottled sunshine of Barossa Grenache started to emerge with generous red cherry and baked earth fruits in a rich and deeply flavoured style. There is also tannins and plenty of them making this a riper style of Grenache but one that also has the composure to improve over time. Give it five years before matching with flame-grilled ribeye.

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93 Points

Drink 2020 – 2027.

I like the concept of this wine – a pretty side to the Barossa thanks to the more protected position of the vineyards on the Hentley Farm property plus the addition of a little Viognier. The 2018 vintage is pretty with its fleshy and voluptuous style. The wine is deeply coloured and shows ripe, velvety and mouth filling fruits with kirsch and blackberry jam the leading lights. Tannins are soft and supple but enough to give some backbone to this luscious style. It is ready to go right now with the balance to improve in bottle over the next five years.

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93 Points
Drink 2024 – 2032

This blend is coming back into fashion and it is about time. It is Australia’s great gift to the world of wine and this is a fine example made in the Hentley Farm style, which is bolder than many of the other similar blends that you will find out there.
It is deeply coloured and shiraz leads the early dance – plush and fleshy blackberry and mulberry fruits and then cabernet swoops in with its herbal freshness. It is hugely powerful on the palate – again that dense, ripe fruit is at its core with moderate tannins that provide a long finish. It screams Barossa more than shiraz cabernet but will no doubt keep Hentley Farm fans more than -happy.
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