Tyson Stelzer
95/100 punten
The purity and precision on display is textbook Adelaide Hills Sauvignon of wonderful harmony and deliciously fragrant allure. Wonderful lemon and lime with lily blossom lift, green apple crunch and electric acid purity. It holds outstanding line and length, crystalline-pure and delightful.

Huon Hooke
94/100 punten
Pale, water-white colour; pungent intensity of aromas, peppermint lollies, background lemon juice and herbs both fresh and dried. Lively, delicate yet intense palate flavour, great varietal character and finishes clean and dry and long, with balanced but refreshing acidity and an emphatic farewell. Very smart Aussie sauvignon blanc.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
93/100 punten
Leading with juniper and cassis, the 2023 Sauvignon Blanc is fresh and pert, with bright fruit and fine, chalky phenolics. I really like this wine, but then again, everyone in Australia really likes this wine. Every single year it delivers this experience of reliably good drinking. Famous for a reason.

Wine Pilot
93/100 punten
Punchy is the word chosen by Shaw + Smith and, as usual, it’s spot on for the 2023 Sauvignon Blanc. Yellow passionfruit, grapefruit skin and guava meets shiso leaf, bitter melon and homemade lemonade. There is a gentleness to the undulation of acidity which continues to roll on and on. A lovely elegant vintage of this iconic Australian Sauvignon Blanc.

Andrew Caillard MW
95/100 punten
Pale colour. Lovely white peach, nectarine, grapefruit tonic water aromas with grilled nut, hint marzipan notes. Delicious drinking wine with plentiful peach, nectarine, apricot flavours, fine chalky textures, classical creamy notes and underlying marzipan, hint vanilla notes. This is a text book modern Adelaide Hills Chardonnay; not a long term keeper but it's brilliantly balanced and ready to enjoy. Like Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz, M3 has become a classic wine of first resort with buyers wanting consistency and reliability.

Wine Pilot
95/100 punten
It's always great to see the incarnation of M3. I tend to think of this wine in a similar vein to how Champagne houses exemplify their non vintage champagne. An apex wine of the brand but like with all great Maisons this wine continues to evolve and transcend with each vintage. The 2022 vintage encompasses an intensity to the fruit with slick and schmick oak in support. Wild jasmine, honeysuckle, lemonade fruit and yellow nectarines. Baked peach cobbler and candied ginger lolly. This is the self confident salesman in the room and I'm buying every word he says. Impossible not to find this absolutely delicious, no matter how hard you try. So stop trying. Give in, roll over and submit. They have done it again! Utterly bedazzling and with elegance and watertight foundations.

Andrew Graham, Ozwinereview
94/100 punten
This a great M3, albeit in a rather tightly focused cool year style. It’s only going to get better and better too. Barrel fermented and spends nine months in oak this vintage. Excellent expression is what wins the race for me here – a little nougat, a little milk bottle reduction but fruit, too, complemented by vanilla bean oak. It doesn’t feel ungenerous, even if the palate has a little youthful rawness. Cool, in the just-ripe white peach mode, with these perfect lines, the palate growing and growing, even if the acidity feels a bit abrupt (a little more malo wouldn’t go astray). Classy, superb Chardonnay regardless. Best drinking: next year, and for a decade no problem.

Wine Front
94/100
I had two bottles of this over the XMAS break while in Adelaide. It seems to be on so many wine lists, along with the ubiquitous S+S Sauvignon Blanc. A little struck match, grapefruit, lime and rind, almond richness. Fine bones, flecks of green and citrus tang, flinty feel, a coolness here, but balanced by some gloss on its pretty long finish, which is lightly chalky, with lime and almond paste to close. Tasty wine. Still quite tight and kind of bony in a way, and while it drinks nicely enough now, it’ll be better with another year or two under its belt. I thought 94 points for the first bottle I tasted, and 93+ for the second. Either way.

James Suckling
93/100 punten
A sleek, mid-weighted & very contemporary chardonnay, embellishing a pungent mineral chassis with roasted cashew, nougat and curdy creaminess. Vanilla-cedar oak, an integrated framework. Apricot pith, white peach and nectarine, too. The acidity, palpably natural of feel and really juicy, towing impressive length. One of the better recent iterations of this rightly popular cuvee.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
92/100 punten
The 2022 M3 Chardonnay is nutty and spiced on the nose, with green apple, crushed cashews, citrus rind and brine. The wine is, true to form, polished, sleek and flavorsome. This is a bit of a cherished wine in Australia; it is reliable and classy, and this vintage is no exception. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

James Suckling
97/100 punten
Such a deep nose, with a wide spectrum of candied citrus, fresh butter and stunning, leesy complexity. Great concentration and restrained richness, with wonderful mineral freshness give this near-perfect balance. So much drive at the extremely long, lemon and lime-zest finish. Drink or hold.

James Halliday
96/100 punten
Offers a journey into the deep heart of Adelaide Hills chardonnay country, which is both filigree fine and powerful. Quite the winemaking statement in what was a difficult year. Expect citrus, flint, grapefruit pith and bite, peach skin and nectarine. Arrives with both texture and length, beautifully detailed and enhanced by lemony bright acidity. Early days for this lip-smacking, gorgeous thing.

Huon Hooke
96/100 punten
Light, bright colour leads into a refined bouquet of straw/toast, Weetbix, smoked charcuterie and a subtle lemony background. Exceptional refinement as well as intensity, and there's a backing of subtly gripping tannin and the faintest trace of bitterness, while the overall impression is deliciously mouth-watering and delicate, lemon/citrusy and long. The oak is nigh invisible. A top food wine.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
94/100 punten
The Lenswood vineyard (in Lenswood, in the Adelaide Hills) is big, and when I went there at the end of June 2022, it was lush with shin-height green grass, there were kangaroos hoping around the place (not a problem at this time of year), and the place generally felt like the picture of health. It's an important picture to paint, because it helps to understand the sophisticated, streamlined 2020 Lenswood Vineyard Chardonnay that is in front of me. The vineyard is at an altitude of around 500 meters (1,640 feet) above sea level and was planted in 2001. The viticulture team is doing their bit to increase vine density via layering, which was fascinating to witness. The clones that went into this wine were 95 and 76. It has notes of white tea, apple skins, chalk, preserved lemon, a hint of curd and layers of brine. Very smart.

James Halliday
97/100 punten
Already a seriously complex pinot, high-strung aromas of spice and forest floor providing the parameters of a palate that builds intensity as it moves from red and blue fruits towards the triumphant Peacock’s Tail finish.

Andrew Caillard MW
96+/100 punten
Medium crimson. Intense strawberry, red cherry, herb garden, hint dried roses aromas and underlying savoury notes. Lovely pure juicy strawberry, red cherry fruits, fine chalky, hint al-dente textures, very good mid-palate viscosity, and integrated savoury/roasted hazelnut notes. Finishes slinky and long. Extremely fine with attractive colour, definition, complexity and volume.

James Suckling
95/100 punten
A beautifully crafted pinot, as always, with focused fruit, subtle undertones of cedar and leather and hints of foie gras. It’s full-bodied, but not heavy, with plenty of tension and focus. Bright acidity with depth and length. Impressive. Drink or hold.

Wine Front
93+/100 punten
Love the tannin structure of this wine. It feels both perfumed and inlaid with fruit, but more impressively it sheets across the wine in a wide spread, integrated and balanced while at the same time being assertive. It gives the wine a bit of class, not that it lacked it in the first place. This is a polished release, with varietal red berries fruit flavours splashed with earth, chicory and dry spice. It’s ultra primary now, as you’d expect, but it feels settled, and so it’s already drinking well. Fruit and the formation of tannin here though are its main quality markers

Wine Front
96/100 punten
This is a beautiful release of Shaw + Smith Shiraz. It’s even-handed and well tempered but then it’s all joy from there. A forest of berries, a walk through flowers, peppers flung through and rubs of woodsy spice; the combination of fruitiness, savouriness, seriousness and fun is a highway to pleasure, built on wine. For all that the tannin is another dimension in itself; fine, lacy, assertive and savoury at once, complete with its own twiggy spice notes. It’s drinking beautifully and it will continue to do so.

Huon Hooke
95/100 punten
Very deep and bright red-purple with impressive saturation, while the bouquet is fresh and brightly youthful dark fruits and spices, black cherry through to dark plum, with a hint of earthy ironstone and graphite— almost a pepperiness. The tannins are ample and supple, adding texture and gravitas as well as a trace of agreeable bitterness which either food or bottle-age will mellow out. Splendid shiraz that will richly reward keeping.

James Halliday
94/100 punten
Leaner, lighter and fresher than what I recall, although picked later than usual. A cool and attenuated year, more Euro of styling, the platform. Real vibrato! Satsuma plum, lilac, Bing cherry, star anise and clove meld with white pepper, cedar and vanillin-framed tannins that drive proceedings long. Savvy bunch and oak assemblage confer poise and authority. Classy, while needing time to shed the oak cladding.

Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
93+/100 punten
The 2021 Shiraz is ever the silky, svelte wine, never more than in this elegant, restrained vintage. It has cool, mineral detail overlaid by bright blue fruits and exotic spice. The tannins are very fine and serve to shape the fruit rather than intrude. It is perfumed, supple and seamless. It has by far the best concentration and complexity of all the vintages tasted here today (2015-2021). It has notes of raspberry, mulberry, licorice, beetroot, cranberry and redcurrant as well as white pepper, clove and star anise. Lovely wine here! It has sweet oak and is perfumed and shapely. Good!

Decanter Magazine
96/100 punten
Significantly riper than the previous vintage, this shows its affection more forcefully through a broader mid palate, with an intense wrestle of blackberry and blueberry competing to win the upper hand. Firmer on the finish with sharp pepper seasoning the fruit sweetness. An intriguingly different Shiraz from a superior site.

James Halliday
96/100 punten
From the home vineyard at Shaw + Smith's Balhannah winery and cellar door, there's a stunningly attractive ripeness to this wine, dark blue and purple fruit notes with kitchen herbal tweaks adding a heightened gastronomic appeal – dark mint, fennel and rocket pepperiness. Delicious medium-bodied structurals and fine tannins provide an equally sophisticated mouthfeel and finish. Superb wine.

Wine Front
95+/100 punten
Smooth by Rob Thomas started playing in my head as I tasted this. Excellent wine with so much detail, complexity, silken texture, spice lavishly draped over it all, savouriness and game meat richness, pure, cherry juice scents and flavours about that. Perfect medium weight zone, vibrant fruit character, all that perfume and additional flavour so very good here. And tannins, beautiful, beautiful caress of fine, lacy, gently puckering tannins. Top class stuff. Real pedigree. Moreish and delicious too. Kudos, S+S team.

James Suckling
95/100 Punten
Quite rich with a bright red-fruit core and biscuity spices, leading to quite a rich and plush feel on the palate. It carries a spicy and elegantly juicy thread of red-berry and red-plum flavors with a fresh line of acidity. Juicy appeal. Drink or hold.

The Real Review
95/100 punten
A very youthful appearance in the glass. Aromas are lifted and exotic with blue fruits, bouquet garni, sarsaparilla, spicy, nutmeg oak and a fragrant whiff of whole-bunch funk. The palate is mid-weight, precise and pretty, blueberry, dark cherry, cherry cola and a sweet kick of seasoned oak. The tannins are there, playing their part shaping the wine and contributing to palate length, which is very impressive.