Wine Advisor
Standish, The Relic Shiraz-Viognier 2021
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Erin Larkin
The 2021 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier is made with fruit from the Hongell family vineyard, Krondorf. It was made with 1% Viognier co-fermented, with 25% whole bunches in the ferment this year, up from 15% to 20% in 2020. The Relic is one of Australia’s greatest Shiraz Viognier wines, and it’s a sure thing each year for quality and execution of style. In 2020, it was my preferred wine of the collection for its savory, meaty/bacon fat/bloody character. All elements were in balance, and it managed a savory and floral drive within the same glass. Super cool. This year, I love the wine for all the opposite reasons. The 2021 is creamy, plush and almost sybaritic in its outlay of fruit and tannin. At 15.5% alcohol, it's the highest alcohol wine in the 2021 release, yet it doesn’t show that via warmth or harshness in the wine. The whole-bunch component is up slightly this year from last, and honestly, it feels completely invisible in the wine. This is undoubtedly the biggest, most plush wine in the collection, but true to form for Standish, it is balanced and fresh, with a long future in front of it.
About the Producer
The Standish Wine Company is located in Lyndoch, South Australia, in the Barossa wine region. Founded in 1999, the winery is already one of the outstanding wineries in the region despite its short history. Standish Wines was founded by Dan Standish. Mr Standish is an experienced winemaker who has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and has worked as a winemaker in California's Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Spain's La Rioja and France's Rhone Valley. In 1999, he inherited from his parents a vineyard in the Barossa Valley with typical sandy and clay soils and nearly 100 year old Syrah vines. Influenced by the style of wines from the Rhone Valley in France, Mr Standish considers this vineyard a gift from nature and it is the winery's mission to produce wines that express the character of the terroir. The grapes are harvested by hand, carefully brushed and destemmed, then fermented in wild yeasts in fermenters and aged for 30 months in 15% French oak barrels. Each wine is vinified for a minimum of two years before it can be sold, is neither filtered nor clarified before bottling, and only those wines of outstanding quality are labelled Standish. The estate's Syrahs are aromatic, full-bodied and sweet, with intense earthy and spicy flavours. In the past, the wines were only available for export or online orders, but now they are also available in small quantities to the national premium wine shops.
