Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve 2018
“If ever there was a good excuse to crack out one of those silly Riedel decanters that look like a melting trumpet crossed with a soft serve, then surely it would for this Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve 2018. Effectively the best wines from Xavier Bizot & Lucy Croser’s Crayères vineyard in Wrattonbully, and in this vintage, it’s a quintessential big dog flagship red. Something to keep and crack out in eons time, smugly knowing you picked a goodun’. Over the years, Xavier has changed this style to be a vineyard blend with varying component levels according to the season, and it’s clearly the right call – this blend of 58% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Shiraz & 11% Cabernet Franc is just right. Matured in 74% new oak for nine months and then nine months in old foudre, and oak is a part of the story here, with wood on nose and palate. It’s sexy time, silk-sheets-and-soft-bodies oak though, all high toned cocoa powder that fills in the edges, and floods the background like liquid Spakfilla. Still oak is a part of the recipe rather than the sole ingredient, which is an important distinction. Stylistically, there’s this polish and plushness which had me thinking about mod-Bordeaux, yet with a bit of Wrattonbully mint for comparison. You’d be hard-pressed noting any one variety either, as it just this seamless plush textural flow of polished flavour. Finishes with grainy, real tannins too and no alcohol burn either – which can stick out on some of the Terre à Terre reds. High class, and ageless Australian top-end red. Swoon.
Terre à Terre Crayères Vineyard Reserve 2018. Best drinking: put it in some sort of decanter-like vessel if you want to drink it now. Otherwise, the (long and quality) cork aside, this will still be going strong in twenty years. Would I buy it? Go 2 bottles. One for now, one for the cellar.”
18.7/20, 95/100 points
11 April 2022
