2021 Mount Horrocks Alexander Vineyard Shiraz, Clare Valley

Deep-ish, bright red-purple hue with a bright cherry and spice aroma, the palate elegantly cast with refined tannins and great style. Indeed, unusual levels of both spice and elegance for shiraz from this region. Intense and focused, spritely and lingering, with a firm finish that presages good cellaring prospects. Drink to 2036.

95 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, March 2023

The 2021 Alexander Vineyard Shiraz hails from the excellent 2021 vintage in Clare and leads with a nose riddled with pure cassis, blackberry, raspberry, dark chocolate and blueberries. There are also pink peppercorns. In the mouth, the wine is supple, leafy and fine; it has a skein of graphite tannins that course through the fruit, and it shows an elegance and poise that is most pleasurable. It has a succulent mid-palate that really inspires you to to chew and move to get the flavor moving. This is a lovely wine.

94 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, August 2023

The Alexander vineyard is organically grown and biodynamic certified. Lush and rich with very dark berry fruitiness the mainstay with a support act of tobacco, clove and cinnamon in a brown spice melange and a flicker of choc-mint in the mix. Scents are more fruit-driven, the palate showing the glue of fine but prominent woody oak with spice as the overarching theme. That being said, it has pleasure in impressive concentration, the palate-staining intensity a feat. It delivers on the promise. Drink to 2040.

94 points Mike Bennie for Halliday Wine Companion, July 2023

Mount Horrocks owner and winemaker Stephanie Toole planted her beautiful Alexander Vineyard in 2002 at an elevation of 450 metres in the isolated north-eastern corner of the Watervale sub-region of the Clare Valley.

20% of the grapes in 2021 were kept as whole bunches and crushed by foot in open fermenters. That portion was pressed, lees settled and run straight into French burgundy barrels for maturation. The majority underwent fermentation in French oak barriques of which 40% were new, and the balance of second and third use. The final blend was assembled and bottled without fining.