Clonakilla's 2017 Hilltops Shiraz has a great colour again this year with a surge of rich black fruit through the aroma. There is plenty of ripe tannin driving the palate. Drink now or cellar with confidence for ten years or more.
Reviews
"One of the more annoying phrases heard in modern life is “this just happened”, or it is when it immediately precedes some kind of highly or dubiously manufactured brag. So let me annoy myself by noting that we’ve reviewed 17 vintages of Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz on The Winefront but, having just opened the 2017, this just happened.
I’ve liked a great many of the previous releases of this wine but this is my favourite of the lot. It’s a ripper. Balanced, well fruited, spice-laden, perfumed, floral and then sweetly exotic. It smells and tastes beautiful, and is so finely etched with tannin; it has everything exactly where you’d like it to be. I’d send a case of this straight into the pool room but I’d like my stash kept a lot closer to me than that and, besides, I don’t have a pool room anyway. Buy."
94 Points - Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, July 2018, Drink: 2018 - 2025+
"2017 was a beautifully medium-bodied season in Hilltops, giving birth to a wine that captures the fragrant and spicy personality of shiraz with great detail. It entices with rose hip and white pepper over a core of red cherries and greengage plums but it’s the lingering finish that really sets it apart, structured with magnificent, finely textured tannins."
Tyson Stelzer
Clonakilla 'Hilltops' Shiraz 2017 fruit was selected from five vineyards in the Hilltops district around Young, on the South Western Slopes of New South Wales.
The 2017 vintage was punctuated by good rain at the right times with just the right amount of light and heat in between.
