2011 Mount Pleasant Icon Series Maurice O'Shea Shiraz, Hunter Valley

The hue and depth is similar to that of the Old Paddock & Old Hill and Rosehill wines, and its bouquet is not radically different, but one sip and you realise that however great the OP & OH is, this wine is on another level again. Swallowing wines in a day's tasting is a mortal sin, and I have sinned with this, so seductive and entrancing is it's all achieved by a medium-bodied wine with an alcohol of only 13.7% It has utterly perfect balance, great intensity, extreme length and a magnificent lineage.

98 points James Halliday winecompanion.com.au

The 2011 Mount Pleasant Icon Series Maurice O’Shea Shiraz is one of the great modern expressions of Australia’s most historic wine name. This wine is not just a flagship, it is a tribute to Maurice O’Shea, the visionary who helped define fine Australian wine long before it was fashionable, and whose influence still shapes Mount Pleasant’s philosophy today.

Maurice O’Shea founded Mount Pleasant in the 1920s, championing site selection, blending and longevity at a time when those ideas were well ahead of their day. The Icon Series Shiraz draws on the best parcels across the Mount Pleasant vineyards, many planted on the sandy loams and red volcanic soils of the Hunter Valley. The Hunter’s warm, humid climate and early picking give Shiraz its distinctive medium bodied frame, savoury edge and naturally vibrant acidity, quite unlike its southern counterparts.

By 2011, Mount Pleasant was deep into a renaissance, with a renewed focus on vineyard expression and thoughtful winemaking that honoured the past without being trapped by it. The Maurice O’Shea Shiraz is built for balance rather than brute force, with careful oak handling and extended ageing designed to allow the wine to evolve slowly and gracefully.

In the glass, this wine shows classic Hunter character. Red and black cherry, plum and dried cranberry are layered with earthy spice, leather, forest floor and a gentle smoky note. There is a distinctly savoury, almost iron tinged quality running through the wine, a hallmark of great Hunter Shiraz. The palate is medium bodied yet deeply complex, with fine, resolved tannins and a long, fresh finish that feels effortless and calm.

This is a wine that excels at the table. Roast lamb, pork with fennel, duck or mushroom based dishes all bring out its savoury side. Thanks to its age, it is drinking beautifully now, offering secondary and tertiary complexity, yet it still has the structure to continue evolving for many years to come.