2023 Spinifex Papillon Cinsault Grenache, Barossa Valley

Pete Schell's Papillon and I have had a thing going for a while. If I spy it on a wine list it's often what I'll go for as it consistently delivers a great drinking experience and matches a range of foods. This year it's 66/31/3% grenache/cinsault/counoise 3%. Spacious, sapid and energetic, it's all raspberries and cranberries daubed with exotic spice, rose petals, sour cherry, dried herbs and stone. That whoosh of sour red plum at the end gets me every time. So good!

95 Points, Dave Brookes, winecompanion.com.au, Published 17 March 2025

Pete Schell's Papillon was one of the first of the mod-Barossa wines to show that ripeness and depth of flavour needn't come at the expense of freshness and vineyard clarity. All these years later it remains at the very top of its game. If anything, it has never been in better form.

The 2022 growing season was mild and long with no protracted heat spikes or heavy rain events- it certainly felt cooler than what we perceive as ‘historically average’ and the numbers backed that up. Reasonable winter and spring rains delivered good subsoil moisture levels and frost and hail events that marked the last few seasons were absent. Signatures of the ’22 vintage in the Barossa and Eden Valley’s are its aromatic freshness, purity and clarity of fruit, typically modest palate weights, fresh and lithe tannin structures -all in all a delightful year - and particularly suited to medium and lighter bodied aromatic reds, such as Papillon

Pretty and aromatic – bright red currant, raspberry, red rose petal and dried spice perfume. Light, fresh palate – spiced red cherry and tart red plums fruit flavours lead dried spice and delicate dried herb and spice notes on a finish kept nervy and fresh with plum skin like acids and fine, light tannin.