Mount Langi Ghiran Billi Billi Shiraz 2005

Mount Langi Ghiran is a profoundly important winery and vineyard. Founded by the Fratin brothers, it was brought into the spotlight by a legend in Victorian winemaking, Trevor Mast, who succumbed to a long illness in 2012. Today it's part of the Rathbone Wine Group, which has invested heavily in its processing and visitor facilities. Its flagship Langi Shiraz is sourced from the late-ripening and unusually cool site on the slopes on an extinct volcano in western Victoria. In stress-free years like 2012 this site can produce fruit of extraordinary intensity and complexity, with classic regional notes of black pepper. Also delivering a superbly spicy and elegant wine from 2012, the Cliff Edge Shiraz is a very worthy second string to the company's bow. The rieslings are stylistically somewhat apart from the Australian mainstream but reflect Trevor Mast's lifelong and Germanic obsession with this white variety.