Glaetzer Amon-Ra Unfiltered Shiraz 2021

Amon-Ra Shiraz is an iconic wine that epitomises Ben Glaetzer’s passion to create wines that are full flavoured, multi layered and intense but still elegant, stylish and finely balanced. Tasting notes: Deep, brooding black. Essence of black cherry, dark plums and spice. Mouth coating richness with restraint and admirable poise. Multi layered flavours of dark chocolate and dried spice with bright fruits and great palate length. Reviews: 95 points, James Halliday From 50-130yo vines, open-fermented, hand-plunged, matured for 16 months in new hogsheads, 95% French. Deep, dense, inky hue; every step (other than a wine-stained crease along the side of the cork) along the way has been carefully scripted, starting and finishing with 15.5% alcohol. If you enjoy mammoth wines of enormous power and depth, go for it. 95 points, Gourmet Traveller Stars with concentrted, dark and red fruits on the nose and some glimmerings of savourt cigar box development. The palate is firm and dry without being stern as there's good depth of fruit. Alcohol brings warmth to the finish. A deep colour, fresh inky blackcurrant, blackberry aromas with aniseed licorice notes. Plush, chocolaty wine with ripe dark berry fruits, classical chocolaty tannins, lovely richness and volume with persistency 94 points, Wine Front From a blind tasting of some 60-odd Barossa shiraz, it felt like 2016 was a great year for more structured, slightly more reserved shiraz styles. The highest scoring quadrant (on average) were from wines from 2016. Anyway, Amon Ra is a good premium wine yardstick for Barossa fans. Here’s a good release. Spicy, peppery stuff over black currants, choc-liquorice, clovey oak. Palate is silky with succulent tannins but has some bright acidity underlying. Quite tight in its style, elegant, svelte, long in flavour, destined for long sleeps in cellars. Blackberries, pepper, dusty tannins, sinewy feel though there’s a dense concentration of fruit-oak slurry underlying. Like this even though reserved – beautiful. 92 points, Wine Enthusiast As dense in color as it is in aroma and flavor, this latest vintage is a rich, chocolatey, oak lacquered wine that oozes raisiny, plummy fruit, dried violets, black licorice, chocolate cake and oak spice. There's a wealth of acid and tannin structure, coupled with plump fruit and a wood spice finish to set this wine up for plenty of years in the cellar. Drink 2020–2038 and likely beyond.