2023 Wild Duck Creek Springflat Shiraz, Heathcote

There is an abundance of purity and floral lift here, attributed to a cooler vintage. Aromas of crushed blueberries, mulberries, violets, chocolate, crushed stones, dried herbs and spice. The palate is restrained and silky, featuring finely tuned tannins and bright acidity. This is a truly delicious, reserved and elegant bottling from a cool harvest. Drink or hold.

96 points James Suckling, September 2025

The 2023 Springflat Shiraz is excellent. Sweet fruit and savory tannins coalesce on the palate and are framed by sweet, malty oak. The wine was matured in a combination of French and American hogsheads, and the alcohol (and American oak) leaves a trail of clove, vanilla paste, aniseed and dark chocolate through the finish. Drink to 2038.

94 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, December 2025

Matured 20 months in French and American hogsheads (40% new). Springflat is the producer's only wine released every vintage since the first in 1991. It's a wine that remains true through the years: super ripe and generous, warm and welcoming and with sweeping tannins to signify both seriousness and potential for further ageing. Concentrated, dense and rich in ripe blackberry, cassis, dark plum fruits, chocolate, fennel seed, cardamom, peppercorn, anise, coffee grounds and earth. Lush and viscous in sinewy, savoury tannins. It's attractive and polished now but with more promise to come. Drink to 2041.

94 points Jeni Port for Halliday Wine Companion, October 2025

Cassis, spiced plum and vanilla bean aromas lead into a fresh and finely styled core. Even keeled, the structure to fruit ratio is handled nicely, bringing balance and harmony to the wine. There's nice intensity too, setting it up to age in the cellar for at least five years. Drink to 2034.

92 points Gabrielle Poy for The Real Review, November 2025

Founder David Anderson was just 21 years old in 1974 when he planted the first vines for what was to become Wild Duck Creek. Over the last five decades he has continued putting vines in the ground with his son Liam across their home in Victoria’s Heathcote region.

Their ten sustainably farmed vineyards now cover 46 hectares. No herbicides or synthetic fertilisers are used in the vineyards, and all winery waste is composted and spread across vineyards when mature. The sustainable thinking extends beyond the vine rows, with vacant land on the properties being continuously re-planted with local grass, shrub and tree species, and the business at large running with 100% renewable energy.