2023 Thomas Wines Sweetwater Ridge Shiraz, Hunter Valley

An instantly appealing wine of integrity, with textbook ripeness and glorious richness. Blood plum and ripe mulberry characters dominate, with an uplift and juicy brightness to counterbalance the richness. The mid-palate is beautifully supple and the tannins are ripe, nestling perfectly within the wine's frame. Impeccable winemaking has created a wine that is a pure expression of the vineyard, shaped by deep red loam soils over limestone. If you love shiraz, you will adore this wine. Absolutely extraordinary value.

96 points Halliday WIne Companion (Toni Paterson, July 2025)

The Thomas Wines reds are really singing this year. This is a cracking wine. It’s bold, neat, structured and long. It’s ripped with cherry-plum and violet, musk and sweet spice notes, and its earthen characters are dark and ferrous. The real quality ramp comes though on the finish, where it not only bursts forward, but ricochets the tannin out in long expanding chains. Excellent wine. Special wine.

94+ points The Wine Front (Campbell Mattison)

Despite the relatively late vintage in 2023, this vineyard in Belford is always one of the earlier blocks to ripen, and was hand-picked on the 21st of February. Located at the very end of Sweetwater Road, planted in 1998 with the 1654 clone of Shiraz, the red/brown loamy soils over limestone found in this area tends to provide a distinctive floral lift and complexity to Shiraz.

Hand-picked, destemmed, but not crushed, the whole berry fermentation commenced after a 24-hour cold soak. At the end of an eleven-day cool fermentation on skins, the wine was pressed off into a selection of new, one, two and three-year-old premium French oak 300L Hogsheads for maturation. The wine spent 13 months in oak before our final blending decisions, with only the very best barrels going to this wine (and a few to our 2023 Elenay Shiraz blend). Bottled in June 2024 and rested for 11 months prior to release 17th May 2025.

Deep vivid purple colour

An enticing nose brimming with sour cherry, goji, blackberry and boysenberry fruit. Hints of Sloe gin, pencil shavings, peppercorn, cedar and exotic spices.

The palate follows through with a generous velvet-like texture and fine tannin. Notes of ripe blackberry, plum and fresh dark cherry fruit at the fore with hickory, roast black tea, violets and pepper hints in the background. Very seductive with a long length and a structure that suggests years of cellar worthiness to come. Drink 2025-2035.

This Shiraz pairs beautifully with dishes such as grilled lamb, beef tenderloin, or slow-cooked osso buco. It also complements rich vegetarian dishes like mushroom stroganoff or eggplant parmigiana. While approachable now, the Thomas Wines Sweetwater Shiraz has the structure to age gracefully for 10–15 years, developing additional layers of complexity over time.