From a prolific sixth generation Barossa Valley grape growing family, Dan Standish knows a thing or two about vines and the vineyards of the region. Harvest stints in California’s Napa and Sonoma valleys, La Rioja and Yecla in Spain coupled with extensive travel and study of France’s Rhône Valley reinforce his intricate local knowledge with a diverse international bent. The Standish Wine Company vintage cellar and barrel store is intimately designed to fully embrace and nurture the individuality afforded by clone, soil and aspect. Tiny open top oak fermentation vats allow single parcels – even single rows – to be vinified separately, enhancing the intricate personality of each specific soil profile.

This is all about perfume, with integrated blue and black fruit that shows polish and refinement, plus undertones of mulberry bush, cocoa, crushed stones, fresh herbs and violets. The palate is plush and rounded with no hard edges, showing a silken, creamy texture that flows across the palate for minutes, supported by almost melting tannins. In near perfect balance, with all the hallmarks of a cool-vintage syrah. Pretty, textural and aromatic. Excellent. Rating: 99 Points; James Suckling

The 2023 The Standish Shiraz is the most "Barossan" of all the Standish cuvées. It exudes earthy brick dust tannins and layers sumac and exotic spices with roasted game and sweet marrow. There are notes of black cherry, dried rose petals, sandalwood, hung deli meat and licorice, all of it strapped to rails of grounded tannin. It's chewy, substantial and of the earth, in its way. The fruit is sourced from the Laycock family vineyard in Greenock, as always, and it expresses the red clay and loam soils there in its splay of tannic fortitude and density. This is very impressive. It is fresh yet meaty/rocky—both attractive qualities in Shiraz/Syrah. 14.9% alcohol, sealed under natural cork. Drink 2025-2043. Rating: 97 Points; Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

The long, extended '23 vintage manifests itself beautifully in the glass with this release. It could be from nowhere else but the Barossa – the Laycock vineyard in Greenock to be precise. Fruit purity is a leitmotif of the Standish wines and, again, it's peaking the meter in '23, with deep black cherry and satsuma plum fruits at its core. There's fruit density and power here but finesse and detail are close at hand. Tendrils of exotic bunchy spice move through the wine, with glimpses of sandalwood, dried purple flowers, charcuterie, tapenade and the ferruginous stamp of place. What I love about this release is the tension between fruit weight, fine tannin heft and mineral cadence. There is precision and power and that is a very attractive thing indeed. Drink by 2046. Rating: 97 Points; James Halliday Wine Companion