A celestial beauty steps into the light

Domaine Naturaliste will make you reconsider syrah from the Margaret River, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

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2016 Domaine Naturaliste, Rachis Syrah, Margaret River, Western Australia (£25, reduced to £19.99 until 1 January, Hennings Wine, 01798-872485, HenningsWine.co.uk).

I stumbled across a pair of Domaine Naturaliste wines two years ago and immediately put them into my 100 Best Australian Wines Report for 2016/2017. When I was compiling this year's Report, I looked for these wines, but couldn't find them. As it turns out, they were changing importers and had "gone dark" for a few months. I reacquainted myself last week with the full range of wines and their maker, the beautifully ennobled Bruce Dukes, and I want to shout about these wines from the rooftops. I have just published a detailed review of the wines on my website at MatthewJukes.com, so please wallow in this portfolio of beauties at your pleasure.

I have picked out the most shocking wine in the line-up here for you to feast your palates on. I say the most shocking because I have never written up a Margaret River syrah in my life. We all acknowledge that Margaret River is a sauv/sem, chard and cab region, and nothing else really makes the grade. Wrong. I have scolded myself for being so narrow-minded and you will wonder why more syrahs have not stood up before when you taste this celestial wine. There is a magical detail to its scent to make for a wine of uncommon grandeur. It is not heavy or muscular, but agile, thrilling and devastatingly delicious. I urge you to track down every bottle you can.

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Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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