Today we officially release our 2024 Syrah collection. We’ve already started to receive many wonderful scores on the collection including a 96+/100 for the 2024 Sandown Syrah and an outstanding 97/100 on the 2024 Astralis from both the Wine Advocate and also James Halliday’s Wine Companion. Please have a read of some of the words spoken on the 2024’s..
The Astralis 2024 is the 30th Anniversary release of the cuvee and it is complex and layered and geared for a long future in the cellar. Erin Larkin of the Wine Advocate says “I visited Clarendon Hills at the end of 2025. It was not only my last major tasting trip of the year, but my visit at Clarendon Hills was my second-to-last tasting appointment of the trip, so it felt somewhat momentous in a year that was full of momentous occasions. We tasted over 40 wines together, and in that time, the repetition afforded me a birds-eye view of the tannins and the management principles at this iconic winery. That insight is coming in handy now, as I taste this 2024 Astralis Syrah. Aromatically, the wine leads with spicy oak, dark fruit and lashings of exotic spices. There is dried mint and clove alongside wafts of game and peppercorns. The fruit within it all is supple and purple. In the mouth, the tannins are profuse yet not obstructive, and the fruit has a pliable flow to it, like all the best McLaren Vale Syrahs do. It’s exotic, and the acidity is pronounced. The stamp of oak is very specific at Clarendon Hills; I find it to be consistent across all the cuvées, and I haven’t decided whether it enhances the fruit or works against it. However, it’s a puzzle for another day, because the fruit here is sensational and exuberant. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under natural cork.” 97/100 Wine Advocate, Erin Larkin.
While Marcus Ellis reviews the 2024 Astralis in the Wine Companion with the following tasting note “The evolution of this wine is something. Once about power and saturating presence, it is now about detail and savoury drive. Once it was all whole bunch and all new oak. Today, it is all destemmed and sees 20% new French, with 20% recent fill, and about 50% three to five years old. This wine always feels like a noble struggle. The organic battling the inorganic, vine roots cleaving rock, searching for water. Dark fruit and dark mineral notes, black tea, chewing tobacco, potpourri, tapenade, dried herbs, star anise, old leather and struck iron. It’s such a savoury wine, fruit ripe yet not rich, finely etched tannins carrying long, the fan of flavour-detail on the finish profound. It’s the new way with Astralis, and I’m on board. Outstanding.” 97/100 Wine Companion, Marcus Ellis.
While the 2024 Sandown Syrah received a whopping 96+/100 score and the following note “The vines were in their late 80s at harvest and, with a smaller yield than average, that translates to a concentrated wine. The prevailing trend at this address for a lighter touch is just as impactful, though. Blue, black and red fruits. Sour cherry, blueberry, damson plum, blackberry, wild cherry. Some graphite. Preserved salted beef. Ground anise. Clove and ginger, fresh straw. A raspberry sour, made dry. There’s a floral/leafy quality here, too, with blackcurrant leaf, wild flowers, fennel pollen and ‘wet’ fennel seeds. There’s a lot to unpack, and this, with its fine acidity and assertively fine-grained tannins, will unfurl over many positively charged years.” 96+/100 Wine Companion, Marcus Ellis.
The Liandra and Domaine Clarendon Syrah’s are also super value for money and well worth having a look.
