Description
5 Red Star Rated Winery – Australian Wine Companion
Top 100 Wineries 2023, Halliday Australian Wine Companion “Quiet achievers are often the keepers, and the wines of Collector Wines are exactly that. Canberra’s Collector Wines never seems to make a great deal of fuss and yet every year, in the glass, it’s showtime, with gorgeously funky chardonnay and stellar cool-climate shiraz as its flagbearers ..” Campbell Mattinson.
Collector Wines are a boutique wine producer. Grapes are grown on the characteristic lean pink granites and reddish shale loams of the Canberra District and Tumbarumba. The wines are hand-made for balance, character and depth of flavour.
Alex McKay started Collector Wines in 2005 with just a handful of cool climate shiraz and a determination to make elegant, long-lived wines. Fast forward to today, and they are known for wines that sing with a purity of regional expression and varietal definition.
About this wine from the winemaker: “100 % Shiraz from the Hilltops region. The 2023-24 growing season was temperate with intermittent rain keeping the vines in great health throughout. A long ripening period resulted in shiraz grapes with fantastic depth and generosity.
“The Cherry Orchard Shiraz is made from shiraz grown on deep granitic loam in the Hilltops region. Picked at optimum freshness and ripeness, the grapes exhibited a core of sweet, fleshy cherries and plums, piquant acidity and beautifully evolved tannins.
“The grapes were harvested at between 12.5 and 13.5 Baume. Fermentation with whole bunches took place in open fermenters which were worked to extract flavour and tannin. Parcels went through a malolactic fermentation and ageing in a mix of new and seasoned Allier and Troncais oak. Blending and bottling took place in August/September 2025.
“A bouquet of dark cherry, plum, and complex spice, floats over a generous, layered, and savoury palate. The Cherry Orchard has immediate drinking appeal, but will also age beautifully over the next two decades.”
93 points, Jane Faulkner, Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion “So much to enjoy in this rich and intensely flavoured red, starting with heady aromas of baking spices, freshly ground coffee beans and mocha. The full-bodied palate comes strewn with dark plums and just a touch of cedary oak with supple yet elegant tannins. Superb drinking now and for a few more years.”
RRP $34 Our Special Price $26.99 when you buy 6 or more of this wine.
