Turkey Flat Butcher Block Shiraz 2024

A fruit-driven, fresher-style Shiraz from Turkey Flat's Stonewell, Bethany and Williamstown blocks in the Barossa Valley, made for drinking young. Fifteen percent whole-bunch fermentation lifts the aromatics and adds spice and structure, and the wine matures in seasoned — not new — French oak hogsheads and puncheons to keep the fruit forward. Expect a bright, energetic nose of black fruit, spice and game with a whisper of dried herb, a juicy core of blue and black fruit, layered spice and meaty notes, fine tannin and a long savoury finish.

Butchers Block takes its name from the old butcher's shop the family behind Turkey Flat once ran near Tanunda. The idea has always been a wine for real food on real tables rather than a trophy bottle.

Turkey Flat's own note on the 2024 finds blueberries and violets alongside the dark berries, with graphite and flint underneath. The tannins are fine and supple. The oak is entirely seasoned French, hogsheads and puncheons, so there is no vanilla sweetness sitting over the fruit. It comes in at 14.5 percent.

Drink it from now up to around eight years from vintage. Early on it is all primary fruit. After three to five years it turns toward leather, dried herbs and earth. Steak, lamb, sausages or a mushroom ragù all work, and so does a pizza.