The fruit selected for Stonewell is the most intensely flavoured of the vintage, and Wigan describes 2010 as “a notch above average on the intensity scale” yet in a line of 2010 Barossa shiraz, this clocks in admirably as one of the lower in alcohol at 14%. It’s at once deep-set and intense in its black plum, blackberry and black cherry fruit, and at the same time tense and coiled in anticipation, tightly contained within a brittle shell of beautifully polished and impeccably textured tannins. There are understated nuances of dark chocolate and liquorice, carried by black fruits through a finish that hovers undiminished for almost a full minute. One of the greatest Stonewells of all time and for all it represents, one of the best buys in Australian shiraz this year. $66 at Wine Cow.