The cool climate of Langhorne Creek typifies Australia at its finest. Heartland grows and selects grapes with the most flavour per acre through careful vineyard management and years of collective expertise. Winemaker Ben Glaetzer gives focus and expression to these flavours to give wines of intensity, texture and balance.

Excellent hue and depth, an early harbinger of a very good vintage, the bouquet and palate living up to the promise. It is a broad-shouldered, luscious and rich wine, borrowing some dark chocolate from McLaren Vale, adding licorice and plum fruit flavours. Drink to: 2039; Price: $37.00; Date Tasted: Dec 2021; Alcohol: 14.5%; Rating: 95 Points; James Halliday Wine Companion

The Director’s Cut series shows just how good red wines from Langhorne Creek can be. This is a wonderful Shiraz and amazing value. The colour is magenta/purple. Impressive aromas of black fruits, chocolate, plums, cigar box notes and spices. This is dense yet dancing. Good oak integration, there is concentration here, but excellent balance and focus. Good acidity and fine tannins. It surely has a decade ahead of it but is a joy now. Great stuff. Date: March 2022; Drink to: 2032; Price: $37.00; Alcohol: 14.5%; Rating: 95 Points; Ken Gargett; Wine Pilot

This is the flagship of all Heartland Wines, and it delivers on its promise. The sleek packaging certainly denotes the pride that it carries. So inviting from the word go — ripe, polished and concentrated — the wine aromas encompass blackberry jam, black-pepper and mocha. The palate is quite layered, a hallmark of high quality shiraz, expanding its flavours of blueberry, aniseed and licorice with vibrancy and vivacity, particularly in the mid-palate. The core of high acidity allows the wine to shine in every mouthful, framing a long deep palate shape, a characteristic that I always regard very highly. Date: April 2022; Drink to: 2028; Price: $37.00; Alcohol: 14.5%; Rating: 95 Points; David Stevens-Castro; Wine Pilot