This wine is generous and rounded at first with juicy, deep berry compote fruits then yielding to a tightly woven frame of firm yet generous tannins. There are alluring, coconutty oak and fine dark chocolate characters, with a deep, soft centre of ripe berry fruits. Elegant acids and light, long tannins carry the palate to deliver a lingering finish.

Medium red with a purple hue in the glass, Jim Barry The Forger Shiraz opens with a brooding array of purple fruits with a hint of violet lift then countered with notes of cinnamon and sweet oak char. The palate is packed with the rich brambly fruit which follows on from the nose. Fine, chalky tannins give the wine a plush, velvety texture that fills the length of the palate. The Forger has a rich, lingering, persistent finish and is ideal for cellaring.

Made for use as a communion wine, it is suitably soft, sweet and approachable.

This traditional blend has distinctive varietal characters of plums, coffee and dark chocolate with hints of violet flower. It is a wine of great length with textured soft tannins.

Offering a range with a unique touch, featuringa different dog breed and personality on each wine. Toby's Shiraz Tempranillo feautres a French Bulldog and is a delightful mix of cherry and blueberry flavours, good oak and a savoury finish. Available in the very useful half bottle size.

PENFOLDS Special Bin 111A Shiraz, Clare Valley, Barossa Valley It is a tradition at Penfolds to experiment, research and develop new wines. The large number of mostly one-off, bin-numbered wines produced, beginning in the 1950s, initially shows a company diversifying away from its core business of fortified wines. In the 1960s, the primary aim was to make show wines, but the program also resulted in the development of current-day staples like Bin 707 and Bin 389 and, more recently, of Bin 407, RWT Shiraz and Yattarna Chardonnay. In effect, the first two Special Bin wines were the then-experimental 1951 Grange and the control wine Max Schubert made alongside it so he could see what the wine would be like matured in a single, old 4500 litre cask rather than the new, 300 litre American oak barrels in which he put the real Grange.That wine is now forgotten, but, said Schubert (in 1979): It did... set the guidelines for the production and marketing of a whole range of special red wines which have been sought after, vintage by vintage, to this day. Schuberts successors, the late Don Ditter, John Duval and Peter Gago, continued the tradition, making small-batch wines (1000 dozen or less) for comparison with existing styles, to try out something new in the way of varietal or regional combinations or simply to spotlight a brilliant parcel of fruit. Some may be forgotten in time, but others are considered among the greatest Australian wines of all time.