It is funny how truly great wines make me think of another other than wine. When I first inhaled the scent of 2018 The Laird, I heard music, which was somewhat unnerving. The phenomenal perfume here conjured up Mendelssohn’s Fingal’s Cave – a distant musical memory from my youth. I have never seen this famous sea cave firsthand, so I searched for it on my phone while diving into this glass. If this wine looks like any marine geological formation, it must be this incredible cavern on the uninhabited island of Staffa. It is fantastic to think that Mendelssohn sat in a boat, off Staffa, in 1829 and penned a couple of bars of music inspired by this cave. Some 15 years later, the first vines were planted in Barossa. I suppose it is somewhat of a tradition for me not to bang on about fruit, flowers, herbs and spices when writing about tremendously moving wines preferring to take my readers to a more emotional place in the hope that they are moved enough to seek out the subject of my musings. In this instance, I cannot get over my Fingal’s Cave spark, and I think it sums up the absurdly deep and never-ending joy that this sublime wine imbues in its taster. Drink 2030 – 2050.

20++/20 points, Matthew Jukes, matthewjukes.com

An epically proportioned shiraz from the 1958-planted Gnadenfrei vineyard in Marananga; matured for 36 months in new French oak 'Magic Casks' from Dominique Laurent. Phewee, there's a lot packed into this wine. For a start, the fruit depth, concentration and purity are at levels that would make Spinal Tap proud. Head-spinning cassis, kirsch and macerated plum fruits with hints of cedar, vanilla bean, tobacco, dark chocolate, licorice, garrigue, bay leaf, sarsaparilla, cola, turned earth, graphite and pressed flowers. It's the vinous alchemy of condensing everything down to its essence and retaining a sense of elegance and place with restrained power. It's a muscular, prodigiously structured wine with a minerally edge and deep Barossan soul. Will live on for decades with careful cellaring.

98 points, Wine Companion (August 2023)