Place of Changing Winds Heathcote Syrah 750ml

The reviews below capture the wine well—it’s a Syrah with plenty of fruit, but it’s also really bright and fresh, very perfumed and very easy to drink. It’s a different expression of Heathcote, a sort of Pinot lover’s Shiraz. We have always sought to produce wine of finesse and this 2019 has certainly delivered.


As for the way it was made, it was fermented naturally with no sulphur and varying levels of crushing and time on skins, including some full carbonic maceration. The logic of our approach was to use whole berry and whole bunch fermentation to bring perfume and finesse to the natural power of Heathcote. Fermentation was in stainless and concrete tank and the aging was mostly in large, neutral oak (Stockinger) and some older barriques (from a range of coopers). We want no obvious oak. Neither this Syrah, nor the Marsanne below, was fined or filtered.


“It’s an incredibly fresh wine, both in style and in presentation. It’s juicy and refreshing, and for that alone it feels very different to the Heathcote norm. Intricate, lacy, fine-grained, grapey; all these words apply. Cherry, plum, sultana and boysenberry are all evident, as is earth, sweet spice, tobacco, meat and stem. It’s a wine with many positive but its best aspect is its finish, which curls out like smoke rising from an intensely defined source. We’re in good days now but better days yet are ahead. This is an elegant, intricate, filigreed delight.” 94+ Points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front (winefront.com.au)


“This wine is a product of a long running collab with Alain and Maxime Graillot, initially made by Luke Lambert, and is where Rob Walters began his wine producing journey. Today it’s the team at Place of Changing Winds who make the wine. There’s an amazing elegance to the palate, which is soft and smooth, without being jammy. It’s a ripe, luxurious wine showing great promise, with a hint of meat and pepper savouriness alongside the ripe fruit. There’s a sleek ripe side to the wine but also some good definition and focus. Very fine, doing a really difficult job of balancing ripeness and freshness really well.” 94 points, Jamie Goode, Wine Anorak (wineanorak.co.uk)