Wine of the week: Farvie’s “difficult second album” is a triumph

2019 Swinney, Farvie Frankland River Syrah

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published 19 November 2021

2019 Swinney, Farvie Frankland River Syrah, Western Australia

Last year, I alerted you to the inaugural 2018 vintage of Farvie grenache and its sibling syrah. With scores of 19.5/20 and 19/20 respectively, these are two of the finest debut wine labels I have ever tasted. So how did these daring wines fare in the cooler 2019 vintage, and did they suffer from the all-too-familiar “second album syndrome”? I am beyond excited to announce that they are a triumph. The Farvie syrah gains a near-perfect 19.5 mark in my notebook, and Farvie grenache has to make do with a mighty 19!

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In top-flight wines from warmer climes, such as South Australia’s Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, and the Rhône and Languedoc in France, syrah and grenache tend to summon up deep black-fruit notes only occasionally spiked with regal red-fruit tones. Spain has more luck with true red-fruit details, especially with bush vine garnacha. But Matt Swinney’s epic vineyards in Frankland River coupled with Rob Mann’s celestial winemaking mean these two wines taste densely red and labyrinthinely earthy, and therefore like nothing else on earth. Only 176 cases of each were made and you simply must have some in your cellar.

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

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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.