Ray Jordan 2020 - The West Australian Wine Guide

It is with great pleasure that we announce another year of the excellent results from Ray Jordan's 2020 West Australian Wine Guide. The 2015 Rolling Stone and 2018 GSM were stand-outs rated best Bordeaux Variety Blend and best Rhone Variety Blend respectively. The 20th edition of the annual The West Australian Wine Guide 2020 features comprehensive tasting notes and scores for more than 600 Western Australian wines submitted from all the State’s wine regions.

 

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Download pdf of reviews here

 

2015 Rolling Stone - 98 Points

Rated "Best of the West" Bordeaux variety blend

This is a powerful and well-defined cabernet-dominant wine. Slightly more savoury and grainy than the previous vintage, with a subtle leafy lift. Has a gravelly tannin character with a type of red brick dust on the palate. Structure is all about the cabernet. It has a rich black fruit density and thickness. Needs to be decanted and splashed around now to bring out the vibrancy in the palate. More of the graphite emerges with breathing. Cellar 20 years

 

2018 McHenry Hohnen Grenache Syrah Mataro - 96 Points

Rated 'Best of the West' Rhone Variety Blend

Has a beautiful aromatic perfume of the grenache. Pomegranate with spicy rasberry and light plum. Gorgeous. Whole bunch on grenache which is 85 per cent of the blend. The grainy tannins have a slightly powdery character. Love the structure and the fruit qualities/. A real breakthrough wine. Has a touch of roussanne in there too to lift the spice. Cellar 15 years

 

2017 Hazel’s Vineyard Syrah - 94 Points

Highly perfumed and aromatic. It has intensity and prettiness. Focus has been on spiciness and perfume with a touch of pepper. This has a small amount of roussanne. It is co-fermented, which contributes to the balance and tannin structure. Brilliant colour and vibrancy. It has so much energy and life in the palate with its excellent texture and structure. Picked earlier to get the perfume. Comes from a rocky part of the vineyard. Unfiltered and unfined. Cellar 6 years

 

2017 McHenry Hohnen BDX, Malbec Cabernet Petit Verdot – 93 Points

This is a malbec dominant wine displaying such a gorgeous lifted energy about it. Sweet, ripe, plummy fruit flavours. Fine chalky tannins. There is a tremendous concentration with a fine acid lick on the finish. Has a distinct graphite character with a hint of liquorice. Very low amount of new oak in here. Cellar 10 years

 

2017 Calgardup brook Vineyard Chardonnay – 96 Points

This has a real lift on the nose. There is a lemon zest and grapefruit character here. It's chalky and fine with a salty brine character. The palate is powerful and focused with tremendous juiciness. Has about 20 per cent new oak made up of puncheons and barriques. It has tremendous fruit concentration with a lip-smaking finish on it. Exceptionally long palate. This gets a fair amount of battonage. Cellar 10 years

 

2017 Burnside Vineyard Chardonnay – 95 Points

This is a beautifully textured and opulent chardonnay. Such deep stone fruit and creaminess with a slight edge of acid and oak. But it is so well integrated. This has a flinty edge to it with a very long and focused finish. There is some phenolics that seems to come from the full solids impact. And there is a slight flint and match stick character. Cellar 12 years

 

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About the author:

Ray Jordan is one of Australia’s most experienced wine journalists. He has been writing about wine for nearly forty years. His first articles were published in the early issues of the national wine magazine Winestate in the late 1970s when he worked in Sydney as a correspondent for The West Australian newspaper. Ray is currently Wine Editor for Seven West Media, contributing two weekly columns to The West  Australian. In 2017 Ray co-authored with Peter Forrestal the definitive book on the emergence of Margaret River titled, The Way it Was: A history of the early days of the Margaret River wine industry. He previously co-authored with Peter Forrestal an earlier book on the Margaret River region and in 2016 released a Chinese language book, Wine in the Blood: Australia’s Family Wine Estates.