2023 Frankland Smith Cullam Syrah, Frankland River

The pinnacle of syrah and made in the best vintages, the last in ’20, as it’s in honour of Barry Smith and Judi Cullam. They started this exceptional estate, planting the Isolation Ridge vineyard in '88. This is made from small parcels of fruit off the original Winery Block. What a glorious wine. So perfumed and beguiling, a perfect amalgam of flavours, nothing dominating – neither fruit nor winemaking. The palate is medium bodied, beautifully composed with raw silk tannins and lithe acidity. A joy to behold, a joy to drink. Drink 2025 to 2038.

97 points Jane Faulkner for Halliday Wine Companion, June 2025

The 2023 Smith Cullam Syrah is a bloody, seamless, grainy, effortless feeling Shiraz wine from Frankland River. The tannins are sensational: chewy and yet ultra fine, all crushed rocks, gravel, ironstone and ferrous notes. This has flowers and exotic spice in profusion and is a masterclass is sophistication. Very young right now, this is already irresistibly fine and succulent. It is saturated in flavor yet contained and lean. Drink 2025 to 2035.

97 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, June 2025

Blueberry, blackberry, lavender, cracked pepper and grilled meat, toasted nuts, aromatic, yet kind of sultry. It’s medium to full-bodied, dense, packed with dark fruit, a thick seam of coal dust tannin, ferrous and dark, and yet it flashes and crackles with perfume, spice, and deep Shiraz character, and finishes long and saline with dark cherry, black olive and thyme fragrance, along with bright acidity and sooty grip. Textbook Frankland River Shiraz, with a little tip of the hat to the Northern Rhône, maybe.

96 points Gary Walsh for Winefront

Perfumed and precise with aromas of blackberries, blueberries, violets, black olives, cracked pepper, smoked meats and graphite. The palate is medium-bodied with tightly wound tannins and bright acidity, delivering a savory, mineral-edged mouthfeel with impressive length and detail. Drink or hold.

95 points James Suckling, July 2025

Frankland Estate was founded in 1988 by Barrie Smith and Judi Cullam deep in the Frankland River subregion of Western Australia's Great Southern, about as remote as Australian wine gets.

The second generation now runs the estate: brother and sister Hunter and Elizabeth Smith, with Elizabeth's husband Brian Kent as winemaker since 2010. They were raised on the land and live on it, which shapes everything about how the vineyard is managed and how the wines are made; organic conversion began in 2005, with full certification achieved for the 2009 harvest.

Their Isolation Ridge vineyard is built on ironstone gravel over clay — the family call it coffee rock — fragile, infertile soils that reward with wines that carry a distinctly savoury, ferrous signature alongside generous fruit and natural acidity. The Southern Ocean's influence and cool nights ensure the fruit hangs long into autumn without losing freshness or energy.

The Smith Cullam Syrah carries the names of founders Barrie Smith and Judi Cullam whose faith in this corner of Australia made everything that followed possible. It is only made in exceptional years. When it does appear, it is worth paying attention to.

The fruit comes from the Winery Block on Isolation Ridge, fermented as gently as possible with whole berries in a single open vessel, then aged for fifteen months in just one French oak puncheon.

The 2023 is everything the wine is known for: perfumed and precise, with dark berry, violets, cracked pepper and graphite on the nose, and a palate of real presence and detail. The tannins are fine but serious, crushed rock and ironstone running through a finish that is long, savoury and quietly assured.

It will reward patience, but there is real pleasure in it now. Good company for a slow-braised hare with juniper and thyme, or simply a quiet evening and the right glass.