Tyrrell’s former winemaker has gone his own way, and the results are in
With these wines the old ways are seen through new eyes.
The road from McLaren Vale to the Hunter Valley was deeply grooved well before Andrew Thomas set out on it. There was a long, and slightly dubious, history of tankers of punchy McLaren Vale shiraz on the road north, the mission to beef up the Hunter’s offering in sludgier seasons. Despite his father Wayne’s prominence in McLaren Vale winemaking, or because of it, Andrew Thomas followed the Tanker Trail to NSW. That his 13 years at Tyrrell’s coincided with a golden run wasn’t a coincidence, and when he left to establish his own label in 1997, what was known at Tyrrell’s became clear: Andrew Thomas is a natural-born winemaker.
He sensibly chooses to focus on the Hunter’s strengths – semillon and shiraz – but with multiple manifestations of each. He does this notably with a range of single-vineyard wines from some of the region’s finest sites. That the vineyard delivering his best-known wine (the one he cheekily christened “Kiss Shiraz”) has been mutilated by the spread of property development is something you’ll hear more about. In a suite of new released reds, primarily from the fortune-favoured 2023 vintage, there are multiple single-vineyard stars, several with higher scores than the wines here. But I wanted to shine light on the wines that show Thomas’s skill as a blender.
The DJV Shiraz Pinot is his homage to the Hunter of old, the days when beautiful red wines of languid softness were made by men like Maurice O’Shea and bore labels that declared them to be Hunter River Burgundy. While that wine looks backwards, a new addition called, appropriately enough, “Nova” peers into the future. The 2023 release blends shiraz with touriga with polished results, but the formula is fluid, the wine’s only requirement that it be an expression of Hunter shiraz enlivened by union with an emerging variety. Then there’s “Elenay”, a blend of barrels from celebrated sites; it’s another wine with a backstory worth investigating. These wines are made with eldest son Dan, while two other sons work at other Hunter wineries, and a younger one awaits his likely destiny. The “Thomas touch” looks set to continue.
THOMAS ‘DJV’ SHIRAZ PINOT 2024
$35
The old ways through new eyes. Gorgeously bright and supple, with abundant red fruits, soft plums and dried raspberry. A notable sour cherry vibe. Warm baking spices waft, a gentle gaminess lurks. Soft, whispering tannins.
13.5% alcohol, 94 points
THOMAS ‘ELENAY’ SHIRAZ 2023
$60
Dark red fruits, ripe plums, dark cherries, some blueberry lift too. Soft licorice, some woody spices; crumbly, friable earthiness underneath. Sculpted muscle and sinew. Medium-bodied – not in the way that some claim is an excuse for lack of presence, but in an athletic, energetic, impeccably balanced way. Fine, softly sandy tannins.
14.3% alcohol, 95 points
THOMAS ‘NOVA’ SHIRAZ TOURIGA 2023
$35
Dried red fruits, cranberry, cherry, boysenberry and even blood orange. Juicy, fragrant and humming with lively acidity. And then, among that fragrant red stuff, lurks the grasping fingers of something dark and broody: 4% touriga. Star anise and cordite, coriander seed and the burnt bits of Chinese roast pork. The ever-so-slight, yet unmistakable, grip of gritty Iberian tannin.13.2% alcohol, 95 points
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