Galway Pipe, Rare Tawny Aged 25 Years, Cross-Regional Blend, Australia NV

This part of our Best In Show selection is usually the monopoly of one of the great Rutherglen fortifieds, and a glance at our Platinums will show that they scored as well as ever. This year, though, it was a fortified GSM that came stomping through to Best In Show victory: an often unsung, unheralded category that draws on some of the deepest and oldest South Australian traditions. The wine is walnut, just clearing to a deep tawny at the rim. Aromatically, you'll find apples, nuts, cinders and sackcloth amidst much else, while on the palate this is a rich, deep but above all energetic wine, lancing its way about your palate and balancing its burnt sugar richness and distilled-compote fruits with bracing acidity and a lingering extractive force that almost seems tannic ... until you realise that it's actually just the residues of time itself.

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