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.
97 Points Mike Bennie
It’s a wine that I see in bits but but everything contributes, a team effort where you can feel the elements at play, and that in itself gives you an additional experience. Not incoherent, not unbalanced, you get this distinct sense of the elements that make up the wine; the fog of potent, darker fruit, fig and date richness, floral lift, lavender and violets, faint game meat, white pepper and a curious whiff of ripe stone fruit in the mix.
Texture is amazing, all grippy, but with plushness at the same time – a two speed texture, let’s say, but delivering all the pleasure and structure of great, great wine. Exceptional length, never ending, gently palate-staining and rippling with piquant spice dusted on dark, brooding, inky fruit character. Amazing wine anyway you come at it.
