Real Good Reds PLUS a Vivacious Vintage Fortified

This is already drinking beautifully and will taste incredible in 20 years. If you already know and love this kind of wine, you’ll be thrilled. If not, you absolutely need to try it. It’s lush and concentrated, bursting with expressive fruit and spice — think clove, anise, satsuma plum, prunes, Christmas cake, black olive, and dark plum. No one on the tasting panel gave it less than 95 points — and more than a few went higher. Want to turn an already awesome experience into something transcendental? While you are decanting the bottle, lay out a platter of hard, salty cheeses like Comté and an aged cheddar, plus some Roquefort, dark chocolate, figs, walnuts, and mascarpone stuffed dates. These pairings are as close to nirvana as food and wine pairings get.

Made From: Leconfield's finest old vine Cabernet, Cab Franc and Merlot, including old vine material and new, small berry clones r8 and d45/14.

Aromas and Flavours: Florals, red fruit perfume, black tea, violets, blackcurrants, blue fruits, cedar

Drink if you like: Yarra Yering No 1, Yeringberg, Mount Mary Quintet

Drink With: Lamb Shanks, a punchy Risotto

Awards: 96 Ray Jordan, 96 Kim Brebach

A first release Reserve Cabernets from Leconfield. This blend sees Leconfield's finest Cab Sauv co-fermented with Merlot and Cab Franc, resulting in the perfectly harmonious integration of flavours. Deep in colour; the nose is fresh, and bright, offering dark fruit aromas, cedar, cigar box and dark chocolate. It balances richness with elegance beautifully and finishes with perfectly modulated fine tannins. Exceptional already, and has a long future ahead of it.

Frankland River is one of the most remote wine regions on earth and produces glorious Riesling and Shiraz. We tasted this exceptional 21 and bought as much as we could get our hands on. There's blue fruits and spice, The fruit is medium bodied yet powerful, the finish spiced and coated with plenty of lovely, fine, trailing tannins.

Made From: Frankland River Shiraz

Aromas and Flavours: Blue fruits, spice, fruit intensity, fine tannins

Drink if you like: mid weight and bright rather than ponderous reds

Useful: Anytime - good drinking anytime, anywhere

Cape Jaffa were an early adopter of biodynamic viticulture in Australia, having over 30 years experience of managing their vines this way. We reckon that Mount Benson, where they grow their Shiraz, is capable of making incredible, world class wines. It's a heady combo, and the La Lune is a superb wine. Here's what Campbell Mattinson said.

'It’s an enormously complex wine. It’s strewn with tobacco, tomato leaf, earth, smoked meats, autumn leaf and sweet spice notes, though the main run of it is all red and black cherry fruit flavours, with modest dips into deeper, darker plum characters. There’s a soy sauce character to the nose and a smoked cedar flavour to the palate, though at all times the wine feels svelte. It’s a complex wine but it’s also a polished one.'

Made From: 100% estate grown biodynamic Shiraz from Cape Jaffa's best block.

Aromas and Flavours: Black cherry, red fruits, minerals, tobacco, spice, plum, graphite, mulberry, gentle but plentiful tannins to finish.

Drink if you like: Côte Rôtie, Hermitage, any intensely fruited but classy and elegant Shiraz

Food: Think beef

Made From: Single site sandy soil Grenache

Aromas and Flavours: Cherries, red fruits, spice, slate plum

Drink if you like: Alkina Grenache

Awards: 95 Halliday, 94 Wine Front

The Wine Companion's Hot Take: Far Out. Beautifully composed, pure ... a bright mineral cadence, it's a ripper.

McLaren Vale might be considered the best place on earth for straight Grenache, but this wine and others show the Barossa has drawn level. This is single site, sandy soil, 100% whole bunch Grenache fermented in a combo of cement tank and older French oak. It is complex, densely layered yet lean on opening and fruit driven once you decant. There's spice and red fruits aplenty, ginger, florals, fine but plentiful tannins and a gorgeous minerality. Magnificent.

Iron Fist meets Velvet Glove. Ray Jordan notes that Willow Bridge's mid tier Shiraz is consistently one of the best made in WA. This is a step up, the flagship wine, the top tier, and it is exceptional. All of us on the tasting panel gave it 95 or higher! Chosen from the lowest yielding section of the best vineyard, this offers opulence and power in equal measure, with black fruits, dark chocolate, graphite, spice and minerality all on show. Power, length, complexity are a given, somehow it manages to be engaging as well.