We're proud to be a Top 5 Red Star winery in the 2026 Halliday Wine Companion.
Explore our Top-Rated wines from the 2026 companion across the Grenache, Other White and Rose categories:
Best Grenache from the 2026 Companion:
2023 High Sands Grenache - 98 POINTS
"This year, Pete Fraser will launch the High Sands, Ovitelli and Hickinbotham together, giving a better chance to view the connectivity. Well, there is certainly a theme in the '23s. A degree of alcohol less, lower colour and a commanding, yet incredibly fine, structural framework. This is a very different High Sands, a reflection of the cool year, but also an evolving direction, leaning into elegance, soaring fragrance and savoury tension. Red cherry, tart raspberry, intensely floral, swirling with North African spices, musk and orange peel. The palate is coiled at this stage, but the fruit has flex and will bloom with time in bottle, radiating out from the core of mineral-feeling tannin and skein of vigorous acidity. This is truly magnificent now, but the future is one of dazzling possibility." - Marcus Ellis
2023 Hickinbotham Clarendon Grenache - 97 POINTS
"This is pale in the glass, fragrant, expressly savoury and built on an energetic tension of fine tannin and vigorous acidity. This has a little more flesh and fruitfulness than the Ovitelli, but it’s neither particularly fleshy nor fruitful. And there’s much charm in that. Red cherry and sour black cherry, dried rose petals, Baharat spicing, pomegranate, clove, mace, dried orange peel and warm concrete, struck rock – it’s one of those wines that I just can’t stop smelling, so beguiling is the perfume. The structure is just as compelling, with insistent sandy, chalky tannins and a seam of electric acidity pulling the flavours long. Utterly individual and absolutely world class." - Marcus Elli
SHOP HICKINBOTHAM GRENACHE MAGNUM
2023 Ovitelli Grenache - 97 POINTS
"From original '46 vines next to the High Sands block. The '23 grenache wines are very pale in the glass, and they are all a degree lighter in alcohol due to the cool year (one I love). A vintage like this really illustrates the kinship with the avant-garde grenache of Gredos, and with Barbaresco, and refined Etna Rosso (Girolamo Russo in particular), rather than almost anything from the Rhône. Savoury, dried red fruits, cranberry, cherry and redcurrant, warm terracotta, bergamot, potpourri, sumac, ground cinnamon, star anise, so tightly coiled, but also tensile, finely expansive in its flavour delivery. There’s tension aplenty, and it promises to unfurl over a long life. Superb." - Marcus Ellis
2024 Circle Grenache - 95 POINTS
"This is the younger vine bottling, coming mainly off vines planted in '08. Up to three weeks on skins; maturation in steel and old puncheons and foudre. This is a nice foil to the Old Vine bottling, showing what relatively youthful vines can do on this great site. There’s an open red-berried and cherry fruitfulness, with red florals supported by savoury spice and a foundation of purposeful natural tannin. This doesn’t have the mineral depth of the Old Vine, but the fruit vibrancy and exuberance yield their own rewards." - Marcus Ellis
Best other whites & blends from the 2026 companion:
2023 Roux Beaute Roussanne - 97 POINTS
"Predominantly from the oldest roussanne planting, a 1ha block, with a small parcel (15%) from younger vines for fragrance. The compression of power is becoming a key feature of what is one of Australia’s finest white wines. It’s refreshing to see the varietal hegemony of the usual suspects being consistently challenged. This, from a celebrated cool year, is at the start of a long and promising journey, somewhat shy, but layered with interest. Green almond, pear, pickled peach, pineapple quince, lemon balm, mint, young sage, oyster shell and a rocky, pumice-like mineral note, which is echoed by the ultrafine pithiness of the palate. It’s another superb release, but it’s one that needs a little time to settle into its long stride." - Marcus Ellis
2023 Ovitelli Blanc - 97 POINTS
"55/17/17/7/4% grenache blanc/grenache gris/roussanne/clairette/bourboulenc. Some grenache blanc and roussanne was fermented on skins for around seven months (47% of the finished blend). The remaining fruit was basket pressed. Texture. For me, it’s the defining point of this wine. Oh, I love the hard-to-pin-down flavours that drift through orchard fruits and citrus, suggest a piney and briny herbal note – like a sea breeze gliding through a cypress tree – and are further complexed with a hint of cracked fennel seed and white pepper. But it’s the texture that really elevates this, the frisson of pumiceous (it’s a word …) grip and succulent fruit, the sapid, mineral/tonic quality, the elegant tensioning, fine-tuned to perfection. What a delight." - Marcus Ellis
Best Rosé from the 2026 companion:Â
2024 Circle Rose - 95 POINTS
"A come-hither colour and classically dry, but there’s a succulent sweetness to the fruit flavours, allied with a textural pliancy. The acidity offers freshness but is also soft enough for that texture to play out. Poached strawberry, watermelon, white cherry, rosehip, musk and freshly ground cinnamon, all elegantly reflected. There’s clearly a lot of thought to the flavour and shape, but you’d be forgiven for focusing on the deliciousness." - Marcus Ellis
