Sami-Odi is a small winery in the Barossa Valley producing the smallest about of Syrah at the highest quality by winemaker Fraser McKinley. Grapes come from separate selected pots across the Barossa using organic principles and sometimes blending across barrels, sites, and vintages.

It’s a wine that I see in bits but but everything contributes, a team effort where you can feel the elements at play, and that in itself gives you an additional experience. Not incoherent, not unbalanced, you get this distinct sense of the elements that make up the wine; the fog of potent, darker fruit, fig and date richness, floral lift, lavender and violets, faint game meat, white pepper and a curious whiff of ripe stone fruit in the mix. Texture is amazing, all grippy, but with plushness at the same time – a two speed texture, let’s say, but delivering all the pleasure and structure of great, great wine. Exceptional length, never ending, gently palate-staining and rippling with piquant spice dusted on dark, brooding, inky fruit character. Amazing wine anyway you come at it. Date: Jan 2021; Alcohol: 13.8%; Closure: Cork; Drink: 2021-2027; Rated: 97 Points; Mike Bennie; The Wine Front