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Chris Ringland's Barossa Ranges Shiraz is steeped in the Barossas post-colonial story and the high art and science of winemaking. Typically deep in colour with intense dark berry, paneforte, espresso roasted chestnut aromas, it displays a plush and concentrated palate with blackberry, mocha, paneforte spicy flavours and dense fine chocolaty tannins. Despite the opulence, flamboyance, richness and concentration, the wine has superb percussion and freshness. The wine is a small vinification of around four to five hogsheads or 1500 litres. The "unusually thick skinned" Shiraz is entirely sourced from Chris Ringland's dry-grown vineyard on the edge of the Barossa Valley, but technically in Eden Valley, along Flaxman's Valley near Randall's Hill. The wine is "painstakingly hand-made" in open fermenters and regularly pumped-over to extract colour, flavour and tannins. After draining and pressing through a traditional basket press, fermentation is completed in 100% new French oak hogsheads. A period of up to 50 months oak maturation follows to achieve optimum complexity and balance between oak and fruit. The extraordinarily high release prices (higher than Penfolds Grange), limited production and reputation make Chris Ringland Barossa Ranges Shiraz the stuff of legend.

The Glenfiddich Distillery was founded in 1886 by William Grant in Dufftown in the Speyside region of Scotland. The name Glenfiddich derives from the Scottish Gaelic Gleann Fhiodhaich meaning "valley of the deer". Once the spirit has matured, the whisky is cut with pure Robbie Dhu spring water. Glenfiddich has a bottling hall onsite along with a large bottling plant in Bellshill. It is visible in a rocky valley’s many solid strata; laid down over millennia, worn smooth by wind and rain. And with layers comes complexity. Which is why Glenfiddich 40 is so much more than an exemplary single malt. This rare single malt is made through remnant vatting, a pioneering process in which the Glenfiddich malt master carries one batch over, time and again, and marries it with the casks selected for each subsequent release. Cask after cask, season after season, it absorbs the evolving flavours of the passing years. It is time, age, experience accumulated. It’s a unique process that isn’t commonly used. In fact, Glenfiddich is the only distillery that still makes use of the remnant vatting process, which is a testament to the label’s traditional approach to distillation. Since the first release of Glenfiddich 40 Year Old in 2000, its special marrying tun has never been emptied, with some of the previous batch saved to provide the backbone of each new release. This year, Brian Kinsman added two butts and five hogsheads of whisky to the mix, creating a rich and sherry-led expression, weightier than previous editions. The sculptural packaging design is inspired by geological metamorphosis and made from jesmonite (a resin-based material used for sculpture and decoration), which is streaked with both upcycled copper, which represents Glenfiddich’s stills, and green glass, which nods to the ever-popular Glenfiddich 12 Year Old, giving a stone-like appearance. Luxuriously full and silky smooth, with memories of past releases in every nuanced note. Evolving from deep dried fruit notes to rich fruitcake, dates, raisins and stewed apples, with sweet cooking spices and vanilla, before giving way to dry oaky notes, with subtle hints of bitter chocolate and peat. The finish is complex, memorable and exquisitely long-lasting.