This is a deep and powerful expression of old vine Grenache. Black fruit, dried cherry, roast beef with thyme and rosemary, dried roses, nori, mint and toasted hazelnut. Liquorice comes up with time in glass. It’s rich and full of flavour, the inky and ferrous tannin, so much flavour and power, crushed rocks and distinct umami character, with a bold and rolling finish of superb length and cinch of orange zest and apricots. Here’s a Grenache that does not hold back, and it’s so good for that unfettered old vine power it offers. No prisoners!

Clarendon Hills Romas Vineyard Old Vine Grenache, McLaren Vale 2022 for www.winefront.com.au

The three single-vineyard Syrahs are very different in their expressions, and it comes down to personal preference as to which you like. Personally, I see them as three ways. The Blewitt Springs Syrah is fine, bloody, mineral and mellifluous, concentrated but weightless. It is grown in North and South Maslin Sands at an elevation of 150-220 meters. The Clarendon Syrah has more guts and backbone—the laminated gray and green siltstone in the soil and the higher elevation (200-300 meters) assists with both of these things, and it certainly has saturating back-palate weight and intensity. The 2020 Seaview Syrah, the lowest of the three in elevation (110-130 meters), has a cleansing, febrile, briny feel to it. The purity of fruit remains unfettered throughout; it achieves a translucency and finesse that the others are reaching for (although the finish shows a surprising amount of hutzpah). My pick? A hot toss between the Blewitt Springs—because it feels to me the most reliant on fruit tannin, and that skein of minerality through the finish is totally moreish—and the Clarendon, where the back-palate intensity floods the palate with concentrated fruit and pulverized tannins. One one or other day—there is no right answer. Awesome wines.

Alpha Crucis Seaview Single Vineyard Series Syrah, McLaren Vale 2020 for www.robertparker.com