Brokenwood Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz 2024

99 POINTS

Toni Paterson MW - Halliday Wine Companion

A careful selection of the best parcels of shiraz from the Graveyard vineyard (predominantly Pa’s, Middle, End and 7 Acre). This is a majestically fragrant wine, with heady rose petals, pomegranate and faint Bedouin spice, anchored by a red-raspberry/cherry core. A subtle tamarind arc brings a quiet tension to the fruit. The palate is refined and exquisite, yet bright and lithe, with remarkable presence and momentum. Its brilliance lies in its precision and the sheer depth of fruit held within the medium-weight frame. So concentrated yet so fine, with a near-imperceptible tannin structure and fine acid line that will allow it to age gracefully over decades.

98 POINTS

Winsor Dobbin

Some wines sing. This is a Pavarotti extravaganza. The new vintage of the Hunter Valley’s standout red will be released in June - and it is a star turn - a wine of concentration, structure and distinction. The Pokolbin vineyard grapes, from vines that are 56 years old, are aided and abetted by 100% French oak (15% new), which is soaked up by the quality fruit. Very composed, impeccably balanced. Dark with layers of flavours; and sensual, savoury notes. This is elegant but rounded; precise and very sexy. An icon from winemaker Stuart Hordern and his team that gets 98 points from me. Wish I could afford a bottle or two to put away as this is a brilliant cellaring prospect for the next three decades.

96 POINTS

Ken Gargett - Winepilot

This has long been the Hunter Valley’s most iconic red and this release continues with the standard of excellence that has been established over many vintages. The wine receives a three-day cold soak before a fermentation for the best part of a week, and then sees time for maturation in French oak, 15% which is new. It is from vines that are now fifty-six years of age. The immediate impression that this vintage provides is that it will be one of the longest lived of the series. Definitely a Graveyard for the long haul. A vibrant blood red with a pale crimson rim, this is concentrated and focused with the nose offering aromas of truffles, dried herbs, plum pudding, charcuterie, animal hides, black fruits, wild raspberries and coffee grinds. It is already exhibiting early signs of the complexity which will surely build over time. The wine is finely balanced, and it maintains its intensity for the full length. A creamy texture, the wine lifts on the palate. There is great length here, through to the silkiest of tannins.  Still youthful, the more time one can give it in glass, and bottle, the better. It will easily provide pleasure for the next twenty-five to thirty years and leaving it in the cellar for the next five to eight years before opening will not be the worst idea anyone’s ever had.  A superb Graveyard.

96 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

This sees 15% new French oak. Release is June 2026. Boysenberry, a subtle earthiness, a little spice, quite some floral perfume, hazelnuts. It’s medium-bodied, it has a freshness and juiciness to cherry almond and blue fruit, a slight iodine and earth character, fine-grained persistent tannin, with a nutty and ripe cherry-laced finish of excellent length. Something of a ‘mineral’ feel here too. Textbook stuff. So finely weighted and balanced.

96 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Boysenberry, a subtle earthiness, a little spice, quite some floral perfume, hazelnuts. It’s medium-bodied, it has a freshness and juiciness to cherry almond and blue fruit, a slight iodine and earth character, fine-grained persistent tannin, with a nutty and ripe cherry-laced finish of excellent length. Something of a ‘mineral’ feel here too. Textbook stuff. So finely weighted and balanced.

96 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2024 Graveyard Vineyard Shiraz is silky and fine, both bloody and floral. The wine is lighter than some of its predecessors, both in color and in palate weight. The length, however, is delicately lingering and long, allowing ample opportunity for assessment and re-assessment. It has concentration without heft, and despite being labelled as Shiraz, the best of the Hunter offer something unique in Australian wine, and indeed globally: finesse, florality, weightlessness and intensity. This is in that vein. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

95 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - campbellmattinson.com

The cellarability of this wine is about as bankable as you can get. It’s a beautiful medium-bodied wine with a fine latticework of tannin spreading through the finish, and seriously good length. It tastes of plums and musk, cream and peppercorns, mostly, though earth, mint and subtle leather notes are part of its inherent character. This wine has plenty of power but, simultaneously, it’s also a celebration of medium-weight wine. In fact it’s a celebration of beauty, and an exponent of it.