red-wines-under-40-dollars

Dune Wine The Empty Quarter 2024, McLaren Vale

A blend of 47/40/10/3% grenache/mataro/shiraz/touriga. The grenache and shiraz are co-fermented, with the other components blended before a year in oak. Aside from a splash of touriga, this conforms more to a classic mindset than most of the Dune portfolio, though the lean away from sweet fruit and into savoury detail prevails. So too the tensioning on the palate, with a compact of fine yet commanding tannins and a clean line of acidity. Blue fruits and red. Well, black, too, but on the taut side of ripe. Violet, dry spices, iron and earth. As usual, it’s an elegant affair – flavour-deep yet refined. – Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion, 95 points.   

RRP $28 | Drink to 2030 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Clarendon Hills Domaine Clarendon Syrah 2024, McLaren Vale

No, that’s not a misprint. This is 12.5% alcohol. It’s from a high site in Clarendon, but that early picking has as much to do with elevation as revised philosophy. It certainly has the vigour of the earlier pick, with acidity and a tightening of fruit through the back palate, but the flavours are present and ripe. There’s a certain sinewy quality, with no overt fruit sweetness, a bitumen note sitting over tart black berries, damson plum, coal dust, ground anise seeds, brewed black tea and wild fennel. There’s flavour, a savouriness, some nerviness, and it’s a successfully different expression for this address. – Marcus Ellis, Halliday Wine Companion, 93 points.   

RRP $40 | Drink to 2032 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Chaffey Bros Wine Co Battle for Barossa La Resistance! GSM 2023, Barossa Valley

What a cracking grenache, shiraz and mourvédre blend! Medium crimson with vibrant raspberry, blackberry and blueberry aromas, with baking spices, peppercorn, graphite, dried citrus rind and purple florals. Juicy, dark and blue fruits on the palate with the most powdery of tannin clouds, bright acidity and a long draw of juicy, spicy fruit. It's just so damn easy to drink. Woah! – Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, 95 points.   

RRP $30 | Drink to 2035 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Dune Wine Chaffey Bros Wine Co Battle for Barossa La Resistance! GSM 2023 Barossa Valley

Axxx

RRP $xx | Drink to 20xx | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Hoffmann Family Vineyards Dallwitz Block Carignan 2021, Barossa Valley

The Hoffmann vineyards in the northern Barossa require no introduction; many of the region's top producers source grapes from the hallowed soils. This is the Hoffmann family's own wine, a carignan with a vibrant hue in the glass and aromas of blackberry, blood plum, crushed rock and wood spice with citrus blossom and violet top notes. There's just a touch of crushed herbs, a pure swell of fruit, and the wine tightens on the finish with a real lipsmacking acid profile. A super interesting febrile style with plenty of fruit flow. – Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, 93 points.

RRP $40 | Drink to 2035 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Hoffmann Family Vineyards Hoffmann DV Grenache Carignan 2022, Barossa Valley

A bruised magenta/crimson in the glass with appealing aromas of satsuma plum, dried cranberry and raspberry with underlying hints of milk chocolate, dried citrus rind, earth, citrus blossom, mixed spice and blueberry pie. Fruit pure, with a little oak spice sneaking in on the palate, lying nicely in line with the fruit. Superfine, sandy tannins and some lovely sour cherry acidity on the fade out. – Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, 92 points.

RRP $40 | Drink to 2035 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Hoffmann Family Vineyards Mickan Block Shiraz 2020, Barossa Valley

Deep crimson with aromas of blackberry, plum conserve and black cherry fruits with hints of cold tea, dark chocolate, pan juices, blackstrap licorice, Cherry Ripe, earth and a fair lick of oak. Full bodied, powerful and inky on the palate, with uber-ripe black fruits, plenty of charry oak, thick, silty tannins and a long stretch of cassis and kirsch fruit on the exit. At 16.1% alcohol there is a bit of heat on the finish, but if you favour power over elegance than this might be right up your alley. – Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, 92 points.

RRP $40 | Drink to 2035 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Hoffmann Family Vineyards Mickan Block Durif Shiraz 2020, Barossa Valley

A deeply coloured shiraz, slightly broody in nature, with a bed of thick blackberry, black cherry, cassis and boysenberry fruit along with roasting and smoked meats, salted licorice, graphite, fruit-and-nut chocolate, blackforest cake and wood spice. Big and bold with a solid swell of black fruits that unfurls on the palate, some bittering herbs in the mix, plenty of charry oak, coal dust and earthen tones and a thickly tannined, darkly spiced finish. – Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion, 91 points.

RRP $40 | Drink to 2035 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---

Willow Bridge Estate Gravel Pit Shiraz 2024, Geographe

Big perfume, lots of flavour. A sense of 'purple' throughout, in the nicest sense. Sweet cinnamon and clove spice in perfume, some dark plummy fruit, faint game meat, licorice and sea spray with a dash of bay leaf in there, too. Similar to taste. Chewy with fine, chalky tannins, plush fruit character, raspberry, black plum and green olive. Beautiful texture, moreish in flavours, with a kind of gulpable feel. Right on. – Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion, 93 points.

RRP $38 | Drink to 2030 | indreams.com.au | Shop this wine

---