2022 Standish The Relic Shiraz Viognier

Other Reviews....
The 2022 The Relic Shiraz-Viognier contains 2% Viognier skins, and this addition presents in this vintage as a core of raspberry and pomegranate. It is pure fruited and powerfully aromatic, as this cuvee always is. Interestingly, I am tasting this wine from two different glasses: one opened two days ago, one opened this morning. They are quite different, telling us once again that oxygen really is a friend to this producer, especially if choosing to drink these wines young. While the bottle opened two days ago is complete, balanced and utterly refined, it speaks more of its florals and fruit than it does its savory register of spice and complexity. However, the wine opened today has nuances of bacon fat and exotic spice. It is tightly coiled and springy and nowhere near as giving as the former. So, choose your own path. This vintage is a prettier, finer but no less long or coiled version of itself, and it will prove to be one of the greats in the cellar. The tannins certainly are a highlight for me. Built for age but also, in the framework of this beautiful season, absolutely available to you right now. An effortless beauty, here. 14.9% alcohol, sealed under natural cork. Drink 2024 - 2052.
98+ Points
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

There is a considered 1% of viognier in this wine. It was wonderful to run through barrels with Dan Standish earlier this year, a matrix of information about the wines and how detailed the final wines are from the barrels considered.
Rich and robust red albeit with a thread of coursing minerality, frisky, floral perfume (and mouth perfume), varied red and black berry fruits, turned earth, game meat, woody spices, faint minty-alpine herb notes. So very much going. Slippery and slurpy, cinched with fine, grainy tannins, a faint sooty spice element to that but feels mostly skinsy and tight by virtue of pure, deep grapiness. A throaty, rich, somewhat warm red with impeccable credentials and great balance. Regal in its stance. Drink 2024 - 2038.
95+ Points
Mike Bennie - The Wine Front