Flagship McLaren Vale red named for one of the nation's oenological matriarchs. Clovey spice, prune, blueberry with cigarbox oak, formulated to good old fashioned styling, pure, pruney, tightly knit and gratifying.

It's evocative salmon pink colour and pulchritudinous perfume belies a very smart wine with the structure of a complex claret and restorative qualities of Sancerre.

Ripe with the bramble/ cassis of Cabernet, the plumyness of Merlot and jazzy spice of Shiraz, toasty oak characters and mocha barrel ferment influences. All the right stuff and plenty of it.

Amenable acids and tenacious tannins within a covenant of complaisant Malibu oak and congealed cherry/ brambleberry/ carob extracts.

An exciting nose of flowers and grenadine, violets and frais de bois lead on to a black and blue berry palate, seasoned by pepper, bay leaf and anise, kept animate by crisp, savoury acids, succulent tannins and dusty, matchstick oak.

Deeply coloured, virile aromas of punchy red fruit, cherries, currant and plum, rivulets of spicey vanillan oak, menthol and dark soily, crushed leaf. Mount Ida is well endowed with prickly, peppered fruit, stalky acids and tensile tannins. It finishes lingering and with poise, closing to aftertastes of coffee and warmly liqueured maraschino.

Bright plum red and bright fragrances too. Perfumes of light cedar and currant, coffee, violet and strawberry. What's not to like about the palate? It's luscious and full of engaging fruit, well balanced, long, persistent.

Generously proportioned and gently oaked, Louis will appeal to the Pinot enthusiast for it's ample complexity and pure varietal fruit. The casual drinker will appreciate the seamless palate, clean finish and stealthy tannins.

Nice wine if you can get it. The impression here is of all those lovely preserves you had in your youth, citrus and berry, spread liberally on toasted rye fruitbread.