2021 Domaine Terlato & Chapoutier Shiraz Lieu-Dit S-Block Malakoff Pyrenees Australia 750 ml

Michel Chapoutier is one of the world's greatest masters of Syrah. Thanks to his $300+ Hermitage wines, he holds nearly seventy 100-point scores—more than any other winery in the world.

When Chapoutier expanded to Australia, Robert Parker catapulted his project to international renown, calling Chapoutier's first effort from own-rooted Shiraz vines “a lusty Australian blockbuster.”

The project is a meeting of wine-world royalty: Chapoutier joined forces with the late Napa icon Tony Terlato in the early 2000s, planting a site in the eastern hills of the Australian Pyrenees and releasing their first wines by 2004.

We've long recognized Michel Chapoutier's talent for taming single-vineyard Syrahs into wines of power and elegance, and that's what he's managed to do in Australia—maintaining a Shiraz with elements of a peppery Rhône Syrah.

The S-Block is a select parcel of Malakoff Vineyard, which stretches out over 46 acres in Western Central Victoria that were still undeveloped at the turn of the century. Chapoutier saw promise in the rolling hills and own-rooted, Phylloxera-free vines—a rare luxury that allows the Shiraz to express its purest character.

The Shiraz grapes from this site experience the full ripening power of the bright Southern Hemisphere sun, while continual cool breezes mitigate temperatures in the vineyard. The result is a rich and distinctive Shiraz with excellent acidity that will keep evolving over the next decade or more.

The 2021 growing season was a standout across Victoria's Pyrenees—timely rainfall, a long, cool ripening, and a protracted harvest yielded reds of impressive concentration and freshness, balance that suits the S-Block beautifully.

Forward and generous like the best of Aussie Shiraz, it's layered in aromatic richness, with purple flowers, baking spice, ripe plum, and cassis over a hint of dried herbs. Firmly structured, silky tannins frame a complex core of rich fruit and exotic wild game that glides across the palate before crescendoing into a long, spice-laden finish.