The Barossa is the home of Shiraz in Australia, and is the place that has seen most of the country’s famous Shiraz come to life. A lot of truly spectacular wines have emerged from this region. However, more recently there has been one man who is doing his own thing, pushing for ever-more pure and balanced wines, Fraser McKinley.
In the past, Fraser worked with the Standish Wine Company and Torbreck Vintners, but in 2006 he embarked on a totally new project. He started a small winery that goes by the curious name of Sami-Odi, producing minuscule quantities of Syrah (he doesn’t say Shiraz!) of the highest order. He doesn’t just doesn’t make generic wines of the Barossa, but he carefully selects plots in some of the valley’s finest vineyards and vinifies them separately to create a cuvée, thus combining their strengths.
96+ Points Mike Bennie
Rich scents of sweet berries, violets, faint vanilla, clove-cedar wood, but gentle, some flighty green herb and undergrowth aromas in the mix. Lots going on. It’s perfumed, to summarise. Silky, satiny-textured, such a beautiful feel with the inky concentration a sub-plot in the wine story. Yep, it’s dense, but the catering for that intensity of oil pool-dark plummy fruit is licks of spice, herb and cooling acidity – lift and finesse in the power. Heft, grace, shapely gummy-puckering tannin, deliciousness and moreish impulse wrapped in. Multi-dimensional. Epic wine. Epic.
