Reviews

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Halliday Wine Companion | 95

The Mallee Root | 2020

Blend of 57/43% cabernet sauvignon/malbec, aged 16 months in French oak barriques (13% new). For the price and quality, this is excellent. It’s drinking beautifully now, it’s supple, sweetly fruited, spicy, savoury and compact. Yet there’s depth and length with textural tannins adding another layer.

Halliday Wine Companion | 94

The Mallee Root | 2020

Blend of 57/43% cabernet sauvignon/malbec, aged 16 months in French oak barriques (13% new). For the price and quality, this is excellent. It’s drinking beautifully now, it’s supple, sweetly fruited, spicy, savoury and compact. Yet there’s depth and length with textural tannins adding another layer.

Halliday Wine Companion | 94

Chardonnay | 2020

If you like your chardonnay rich and full bodied with plenty of flavor, here’s one to satisfy. Loads of ripe peaches, melon doused in lemon curd and cream, nutty/leesy flavours, too, with the oak adding spices and sweetness. It’s also delicious.

Halliday Wine Companion | 95

Cabernet Sauvignon | 2020

A thoroughly beautiful and refined cabernet sauvignon from this excellent vintage. There’s a small amount of bright malbec in there bringing a juicy red fruit impact to the middle palate. IT’s one of the more elegant and stylish cabernets from Victory Point displaying impeccable balance of fruit oak and tannin. Bright blackcurrant fruit on the nose with a leafy oyster shell influence. The palate is still tightly held as is the case with many of these 2020 cabernets but it will certainly release and evolve with time.

winepilot.com | 95

Petit Verdot | 2021

These vines planted in 1997 are now reaching a level of maturity to supply fruit of excellent balance and concentration. This is a medium to full bodied wine with a firm core of tannin supported by largely older oak and a smidgeon of new French. Dark chocolate and slightly minerally plummy bac fruit provides the palate base. It’s a fruit and fleshy wine with poise and balance.

| 92

Pinot Noir | 2021

The vintage was a bit of a balancing act for winemakers with some pesky rain, but for these later ripening varieties it worked out okay. It’s a tidy medium bodied wine showing that pinot noir can work rather well in Margaret River. Has a spicy raspberry cherry aroma with a little vanilla bean. The decision not to use any new oak has allowed a full expression of the fruit while retaining its core of lifted acidity and fine tannins.

winepilot.com | 92

The Mallee Root | 2020

One of the prettiest and most elegant of any wine under this Mallee Root label. Excellent year contributed to it for sure, but some astute winemaking has helped. Hand plunging in small open fermenters has contributed to the bright highly scented aromas. Lovely red berry with a little blackcurrant richness with fine chalk tannins and clever subtle use of oak. Mighty good wine for less than $30.

winepilot.com | 94

Chardonnay | 2020

This ever improving chardonnay comes from mature unirrigated vines. It is a mix of Gingin and Dijon clones which combines power and elegance in once united presentation. It’s whole bunch pressed to oak for 100% wild fermentation before 10 months in oak of which 38% was new. Has a creamy stone fruit middle palate with a trace of cashew and minerality. This was a very good vintage for chardonnay and tis ne has emerge beautifully.

winepilot.com | 95

Malbec | 2021

A wonderful purple-black hue. Exceptional varietal flavours at play; violets, black plums and cherries with a waft of warm earth and dark chocolate. It’s full bodied, rich and ripe with plentiful tannins plumped by cedary sweet oak. A well-composed wine offering a good drink today or in a few years hence.

Halliday Wine Companion | 95

Rosé | 2022

Really pretty rosé from Margaret River. Rosé from Victory Point has been very good over the years and this blend of 50% pinot noir, 26% malbec and 24% cabernet franc is one of the best. The pinot component was fermented in oak, although it wasn’t designed to impart overt oak character, and the malbec and cabernet franc co-fermented in tank. So that little textural component from the pinot is important in the final feel and texture. Perfumed cherry and raspberry characters on the nose and a deliciously appealing palate.

winepilot.com | 93

Rosé | 2022

“Made from pinot noir, cabernet franc and malbec and it sure packs a lot of flavour. Rose petals, Middle Eastern spices, Turkish delight with watermelon and its rind. Tangy and bright with plenty of refreshing acidity, yet there’s texture too. Nice one.”

Halliday Wine Companion | 93

Rosé | 2022

This rose from Victory Point has developed into one of the benchmark wines for this style. It’s light and fragrant, but with a little barrel fermentation it is also textured. A combination of pinot noir, cabernet franc and malbec has been used, which makes sense because the aromatics of all three and their bright red fruit characters suit this style to perfection. One to tuck into over the summer.

WA Wine Guide | 93

Pinot Noir | 2020

“2020 is shaping up to be such an effortless vintage (for us drinkers, anyway). This silken and plush, laden with ripe red cherries, redcurrants, pomegranates and summer strawberries. Routinely a wonderful wine this vintage is no exception.”

Halliday Wine Companion | 94

The Mallee Root | 2019

“This is a wine that has improved over the years and continues to offer some of the best value for Margaret River reds. It’s a blend of cabernet sauvignon with small contributions from petit verdot and cabernet franc. The result is a smooth and quite rich succulent wine of soft oak and tannin influence but still with a serious side in structure and poise.”

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The Mallee Root | 2019

“Licorice, aniseed and fennel flowers linger through the finish, adorning the resplendent red fruit. Quite gorgeous. At this price, a steal.”

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Cabernet Sauvignon | 2019

“Labeled Cabernet Sauvignon, although Malbec, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Franc often make small contributions. In any case, this wine is about red berry / red currant Cabernet fruit, and great length and persistence. Underpinning the quality fruit is a beautifully handled tannin structure. A hallmark of the VP reds is wonderfully ripe tannins, and in the 2019, the pristine red berry that builds through the palate, is seemingly escorted by those tannins through to a very long close, finishing fruit fresh.”

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Cabernet Sauvignon | 2019

“This is the flagship for Victory Point. There is a wonderful brightness and energy through here, with a lively buoyant precise medium bodied palate. The new and older oak has been balanced astutely to harmonise with those chalky fine tannins.”

winepilot.com | 95

Cabernet Sauvignon | 2017

Gold Medal Winner
“A classic note of cassis and cigar box with a rich, elegant, layered, structured, concentrated, opaque palate.”

International Wine Challenge | GOLD

Chardonnay | 2018

“60% Gingin clone, the balance clones 277, 76 and 95. Hand-picked fruit, whole-bunch pressed to barrel for 10 months (42% new). Partial wild ferment, partial mlf, regular bâtonnage. Fabulous intensity of flavour – this really dives deep and goes long on the palate. Yellow and white peach, brine, curry leaf and all the good things we want to see in high-quality chardonnay, with some red apple skins and crushed cashew for good measure. Great length of flavour, no shortage of heft.”
– Erin Larkin

Halliday Wine Companion | 95