2025 Dune Blewitt Springs Shiraz, McLaren Vale

Mulberry, dark cherry and plum with sweet herbs, black pepper and smoked meat. A combination of whole bunch, whole berry and crushed fruit brings aromatic lift and complexity while adding texture to the mid-weighted palate. Fine chalky tannins and fresh acidity carry the fruit through a long, savory and spicy finish. Drink or hold.

93 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, September 2026

There’s a bit of throb and concentration to this year’s release. It’s a black fruited and dark choc hazelnutty offering, featuring a bit of spice and mint, and shows a curious level of violet and lavender perfume for such a hot and dry year. It’s medium to full-bodied, dense and meaty, with thick-set but ripe tannin, a dark cherry and raspberry juiciness, some black olive rolled in herbs, on a saline finish of good length. Very good. Plenty of wine to sink your teeth into.

93 points Gary Walsh for Wine Front

From the warm and dry 2025 vintage, this wine was made in the now-established minimal intervention Dune style, with maturation in a combination of stainless steel and well-seasoned oak barrels.

Medium-bodied and savoury, the wine puts its dark, ripe fruit at the centre, wrapped in light layers of meaty spice, smokiness and fine tannins.

Drinking well on release, this will improve over several years in the bottle. Anything off the summertime grill will be company to its flavours, and it is likely to be well liked in a larger crowd, too.

About this producer

Dune is the project of brothers Duncan and Peter Lloyd, next generation of the Lloyd family whose name has long been synonymous with McLaren Vale wine through Coriole. Their focus is a single organically farmed vineyard in the Blewitt Springs subregion, a cooler, sandier corner of the Vale that retains natural acidity well and is proving an increasingly compelling home for varieties beyond the region's mainstream styles.