It would appear that the Mount Ida label, as a stand alone wine, has now come under the Seppelt marketing umbrella. Opaque black purple colour with black purple hue, showing excellent cling to the glass walls. Aroma of liquorice, spice, blackberry and vanilla followed by a ripe plum end note. The palate delivers weight and mouthfeel with flavours of liquorice allsorts, blackberry and black pepper delivering a classic Heathcote palate. Fine dry and persistent tannins. Aftertaste of black pepper, vanilla and plum, with fine dry tannins persisting.
Heathcote in Central Victoria has long had an envious reputation for producing wines of power and grace. Wines that speak of their strong connection with the regions famous Cambrian soils and the rugged landscape from which they spring. The Mount Ida vineyard was first planted in the mid-1970s but was decimated by the Ash Wednesday fires of 1983. The vines took several years to recover and with additional planting in 1991, today produced wines of incredible concentration and regional definition.
"When I was a young wine lad Mount Ida Shiraz was quite a figure in Australian wine, or at least in Victorian circles it was. The label has had many ups and downs over the years and indeed, this is the first release under the Seppelt name since 2006. Officially it is, anyway. It’s made from a dry-grown vineyard in Heathcote that was planted in 1975. It was matured in a good deal of new French oak. The oak is obvious and too prominent as a young wine but the fruit beneath is substantial. We’re talking sweet, gluey, cedary/smoky oak – sexy oak you could even call it – as a foreground rather than a background influence. Plum, clove, eucalypt and red liquorice flavours plump out the palate and while tannin is largely swamped by fruit and oak, there’s enough here to suggest that this will age well over a good many years. It’s probably been released too early and it’s probably seen too much new oak, but I still think it’s very good." 93 points Campbell Mattinson winefront.com.au
