Thousand Candles Single Vineyard Syrah 2024 from the Yarra Valley follows the house’s now‑iconic cool‑climate syrah style – intensely coloured, highly perfumed and shaped by whole‑bunch fermentation to deliver lift, spice and fine, flowing tannins. This Thousand Candles Single Vineyard Syrah 2024 sits alongside the 2022 release, drawing from the same single site and minimal‑intervention approach to showcase vineyard character over winemaking artifice.

Expect a distinctive nose of blueberry and dark berries, black cherry and pepper, layered with lifted perfume, allspice, cloves and dried herbs, in line with previous vintages that combine roasted‑nut, charcuterie and black‑fruited notes. On the palate it is elegant rather than heavy – cool‑climate dark fruit, blueberry and spice carried on vibrant freshness, with soft yet persistent tannins shaped by significant whole‑bunch use (around 80–100%), wild yeast ferment and maturation in older French oak, giving length, savoury detail and a gently sappy edge.

Food‑wise, it’s a superb match for chargrilled lamb, pepper‑crusted steak, duck or game birds, where those pepper, spice and charcuterie notes dovetail neatly with smoky, savoury flavours. It will also shine alongside richer mushroom dishes and hard cheeses, and with earlier Syrah vintages scoring in the mid‑90s, you can comfortably treat the 2024 as both a characterful drink now and a medium‑term cellaring prospect for added complexity.