CRAGGY RANGE LE SOL SYRAH 2024

Winery notes (2024 Vintage)
"Our Prestige wines represent the pinnacle of our terroir and winemaking, meticulously crafted from select blocks of our single vineyard estates.The 2024 release marks our 25th harvest, and the first vintage guided by Chief Winemaker Ben Tombs.

Le Sol, meaning “the soil”, is crafted from Syrah grown in the stoniest parts of our Gimblett Gravels Estate, planted to a heritage MS clone brought to New Zealand in the 1840's. Intensively hand-managed, guided by hand 13-14 times across the season. It is always aromatically pure, with a luscious yet elegant mid-palate and a distinctive fine-tannin finish.

Rich, evocative, yet refined, Le Sol has evolved since its first release to achieve that balance between intense yet floral Syrah in its purest form. The longevity of this wine is never in doubt; however, there is an increasing approachability upon release, so its beauty can be appreciated now while also anticipating future occasions when it will truly shine."

99/100 Ken Garegett, WinePilot.com, August 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"An opaque yet vibrant purple/maroon hue with a dark magenta edge. Beautifully refined, this is all class. Imagine if you could take what's best about New World Shiraz and Old World Syrah and blend them into something even more special. The wine has exquisite balance and aromas of chocolate, mocha, leather, cloves, cassis, animal flesh, truffles, violets, licorice, bergamot and coffee beans. Well focused with great length, we see hints of bacon fat and cocoa powder emerging on the palate. Despite this cornucopia of flavours, the wine is at all times regally elegant and yet the intensity never wavers for a moment. Such length. Finishing with silky tannins, the seductive texture runs throughout, and the wine should drink magnificently over the next fifteen to twenty-five years. A stunning Syrah and time might just get it over the hump to that perfect score, although it does seem a little churlish not to award it now. Wonderful stuff."

98/100 Tom Kline, WinePilot.com, August 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"Red peppercorn melds with sweet cedar to start, some violet florality appears with air, along with clove, star anise and kirsch. The fruit emerges with a swirl of the glass in black and red cherry, plum and blackberry pie before savoury au jus and flickers of liquorice add to the complexity. There's some bitter tones in spent coffee grounds and dark chocolate too. With some time in the glass, this really clicks into place with the pepper and baking spices and other savoury components beautifully weaving through the fruit to create a complex, beguiling and alluring perfume. It's elegant, focused and polished in the mouth from the outset with an incredibly restrained and seamless texture. While fine, it's eminently intense, driving and firmly structured, flowing through the palate as if being drawn along by its pepper-infused grainy tannins and savoury lashings of surging acidity. The length is seemingly endless, with some attractively bitter tones in cocoa powder and dark chocolate. This is such an impactful and impressive release of complexity, elegance, intensity and length. This will age brilliantly over several decades for those who can wait."

5 Stars & 97/100 Stephen Wong MW, The Real Review (2024 Vintage)
"Deep violet. Decadent clouds of cedar, vanilla and whipped cream surround the dense, sweet core of violet, plum and blackberry with inchoate notes of molasses and cinnamon lurking in the wings. This is on another level of concentration, exploding across the palate with waves of black fruit, olive, spice and creamy wood and hiding an impressive amount of structured, grippy tannin under the sweetness and plush velvet. Entirely primary at this stage, this can develop over the long termbut could equally be enjoyed for its exuberance in its youth due to the puppy fat."

Rated Outstanding & 96/100 Cameron Douglas MS, July 2026 (2024 Vintage)
"Fabulous colour and concentration with a dark fruited, broody bouquet, layers of blackcurrant and smoky oak, clove and vanilla-pod, dried herb and purple fruits. Dry with a heavy-silk touch then quickly moving into a taut, youthful and grippy wine releasing firm tannins and a backbone of acidity then back to fruit. Violets and plums, boysenberry and blackcurrant, smoky wood and baking spices and a leesy reductive seam. Delicious and new, taut and needing time to settle and develop. Best drinking from 2029 through 2039."

95/100 Andrew Caillard MW (2024 Vintage)
"Deep crimson. Beautiful pure blackberry, graphite aromas with hints of black pepper and spice. Smooth and buoyant with fresh blackberry, mulberry fruits, fine slinky tannins and underlying roasted chestnut notes. Finishes chocolaty and minerally. Superb fruit definition and flow."