DANDELION VINEYARDS LIONESS of McLAREN VALE SHIRAZ 2022

Double Gold Medal – Women’s Wine & Spirits Awards 2024
Gold Medal – Sakura Japan Woman’s Wine Awards 2024
Gold Medal – Asia International Wine Competition 2024

Winery notes (2022 Vintage)
"Dandelion Vineyards is a unique fusion of vineyards and vignerons. Our wines represent decades of experience, blending the fruit of our old vine gardens with the finest traditions of artisan winemaking. Dandelion Vineyards are proven plantings that have stood the test of time. Our wish is to nurture the unique character of these vineyards and express their terroir in our wines.

After hand picking whole bunches of our Lioness of McLaren Vale in the third week of March our winemaker Elena Brooks gently crushed the fruit into open fermenters. After a 12 day fermentation the wine was basket pressed into some new but predominately older French Oak barriques, to then mature for a further 18 months in the same oak, before bottling with minimal winemaking artifact to capture the essence of the vineyard. Although ready to drink the Lioness of McLaren Vale will also reward cellaring and decanting.

A deft combination of the winemaker’s bouquet and the vineyard’s grape aromatics. The latter is all pepper, earth and plums – with a whiff of freshly grated white chocolate, some tar and some aniseed. This is the ying and yang of McLaren Vale shiraz. And then, in low undercurrent, comes the winemaker’s pinch of cinnamon and of mixed spice, of that leather and of that coffee that comes from judicious oak barrel use. A thoughtless sip might initially suggest a red wine that is round, rich and giving. And there is nothing wrong with that. Further connoisseurship, however, reveals the continued interplay between the barrel and the grape. Those warmer and more exotic spices lace ever so lightly a deep core of unbridled and yet uncoiled shiraz fruit. Dark fruit. Fruits of Christmas Pudding and plums, of blackberry and mulberry. The finish is dry and long."