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.

Amazing aromas of metal shavings, cloves, spices, and black and blue fruits. Violets, too. Full-bodied with creamy tannins. Cured meat with iron earth. Almost slatey. Very sophisticated and classy. Drinkable, but this is one to age ideally for a minimum of five years. Try after 2027. Rating: 98 Points; James Suckling

The 2020 The Standish Shiraz was made with fruit from the Laycock family vineyard, in Greenock. The first vintage was 1999. This vintage saw 30% whole bunches in the ferment. It offers notes of red dirt, a bit of blood, salted heirloom tomato and satsuma plum. This is concentrated, compacted, plush, dense and muscular, with notes of ras el’hanout, allspice, torched cinnamon and salted Dutch licorice. This wine is like playing "Magic Eye." There’s a lot going on, but if you relax, a pattern emerges and the detail becomes obvious for all to see. Within the fine but plushly tannic frame, there is saltbush and bay leaf, exotic spice and cascading layers of berry fruits. The dirt in which the roots are entangled similarly shows its colors—and these are red, ochre, earth and dust. At first glance, the foolish and the rash will overlook this for being singularly muscular and full-bodied, but like all the best IYKYK (if you know, you know—wink wink) scenarios, there is far more than meets the palate here. Another blockbuster Standish. Drink 2022-2042. Rating: 96 Points; Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

A little vanilla and floral perfume, blueberry, boysenberry, a little earth and spice. Blue fruit, spice, shows a little creamy vanilla oak, supple but dense tannin, freshness, and a sweet tea like perfume on a long finish. Maybe some raspberry. Excellent, somewhat more approachable in style, and obvious, than the other wines from Standish in 2020, but charming and lovely all the same. More than a bit yummy. Tasted: May 2022; Alcohol: 14%; Closure: Cork; Drink: 2023-2037; Rated: 95 Points; Gary Walsh; The Wine Front