Silica & Starlight: Clarendon Hills Astralis Shiraz 2010

What unfolds in the glass when Astralis 2010 is poured?

I ease the decanter toward the candle‑lit rim of a tulip‑bowled Burgundy stem—three unhurried hours after the cork surrendered—and midnight garnet shivers into view, its heart still purple as crushed violets. The first stream coils in the glass like Saturn’s rings, throwing prismatic sparks along the table linen; you can almost hear the hush of moon‑lit dunes as it settles. The 2010 season in McLaren Vale was a benevolent conspirator—winter rain replenished aquifers, a mild spring coaxed steady budburst, and a gently warming summer spared the vines the furnace days that sometimes trouble their dreams. With such luxury of time, the old Blewitt Springs vines, rooted in iron‑rich sand and shards of quartz, pushed their roots deeper, trading secrets with clay and mica until sugars, acids, and tannins all hummed the same quiet note.

Lift the bowl to your nose and inhale once: black‑plum and blueberry conserve roll over an undercurrent of cassis liqueur; swirl again and a seam of savoury—smoked pancetta, star anise, cracked pepper—rises in slow spirals, followed by the warm whisper of lavender stem just singed on a hearthstone. A final breath yields the scent of rain striking red dust and the floral sigh of night‑blooming violet drifting through an open window.

On the palate the wine is orchestral: dense fruit at the core, yet tannins—fine as graphite dust—fan out in silky concentric rings, brushing the tongue like the sweep of silk banners in a desert procession. Acidity, often the forgotten drummer in warm‑climate Shiraz, keeps immaculate tempo, and the finish travels a full minute, tapering through mocha, sarsaparilla, pipe‑tobacco leaf, and the cool metallic glint of cold‑forged steel. No wonder Wine Advocate sealed it with a perfect 100. Other critics spoke of a “gravitational pull”—their tongues searching for astral metaphors to match the label. Cellar sages suggest a drinking horizon to 2035, yet this evening it already speaks in complete sentences and even punctuates them with ellipses of lingering graphite spice.

(Decant 2–4 h; serve at 16–18 °C for clarity of perfume; choose wide tulip‑shaped crystal so the aromatics can climb, and let candlelight brush the bowl—the wine seems to answer with its own inner ember.)

Why does this celestial Shiraz command such reverence?

Astralis is the keystone of Clarendon Hills, a single‑parcel wine first mapped in 1990. The block sits above the morning‑fog line, thirty‑five kilometres south of Adelaide but already dreaming of the sea; overnight breezes from Gulf St Vincent cool the sand, gifting the clusters a balsamic lift. The vines, planted between the World Wars and trained as low bush, grow no higher than a pilgrim’s walking staff, so each arm drinks deep of sunrise yet feels the nightly shiver that sculpts flavour. Winemaker Roman Bratasiuk writes the vintage like a clay tablet: whole berries, indigenous yeasts, eighteen months in tight‑grained French barriques—more vessel than flavouring—racked by gravity alone, then bottled unfined and unfiltered so the wine can carry a faint haze of starlight into the cellar.

Market chatter mirrors the myth: average global pricing hovers around US $250, sometimes surging when a pristine case appears at auction; whispered comparisons to Grange and Hill of Grace braid prestige with anticipation. Sommeliers speak its name the way astronomers speak of Betelgeuse—wonder tinged with calculation, measuring luminosity even as they marvel.

Which foods dance in orbit around Astralis 2010?

I tilt the goblet and let the wine’s perfume lead the way as though it were a reed‑flute calling dishes out of the dark. First comes the slow‑roasted lamb shoulder, its rosemary‑laced fat cascading in molten sheets; with every forkful the wine’s graphite‑fine tannins melt into velvet, the pepper‑anise undertow threading itself through sinew and smoke. The lamb’s outer crust carries a lick of char that mirrors the cocoa‑tinged edge of Astralis’s finish, while sweet root vegetables roasted alongside echo the wine’s plummy centre.

Yet Astralis is not sated. It beckons a lean medallion of char‑grilled kangaroo, crusted in wattleseed and cocoa nib; the meat’s sanguine brightness wakes the blackberry core, and the iron in the flesh finds an uncanny harmony with the wine’s mineral spine, as though both had licked the same meteor. A drizzle of bush tomato jus pulls a line of acidity across the plate, keeping the conversation brisk.

From the garden I ladle a pillow of polenta steeped in porcini broth and finished with a sigh of white truffle. The dish’s earthy umami plugs directly into Astralis’s bass notes—forest floor, petrichor, the faint memory of my own underworld clay—allowing the violets in the bouquet to float upward like dusk moths. To one side, charred Japanese aubergine lacquered in miso and black garlic offers sweet‑savory chiaroscuro; the Shiraz’s acidity slices cleanly through the glaze, leaving behind an echo of nutmeg and sandalwood. A tumble of roasted chestnuts completes the vignette, their mealy sweetness mirrored by a ripple of mulberry at the wine’s edge.

At the table’s fringe waits a sable‑dark espresso‑cocoa tart glazed with bittersweet ganache and kissed with candied violet. Its restrained sweetness respects the wine’s architecture, letting tannin act as a coda rather than a clash. One sip, one forkful, and the boundary between fruit and chocolate dissolves; what remains is a stretch of midnight sky threaded with meteoric spice. Should your spirit crave a second finale, bring forth a wedge of cloth‑bound aged cheddar streaked with crystalline salt. The cheese’s nutty density meets the Shiraz’s mocha‑graphite backbone in a duet that finishes on a hum of old barn beams and dark cherry stone.

Gesh remembers—brief flashes from vine, dream, and depth

I first tasted Astralis while my sandals were still dusted with the ochre of the underworld; the wine’s plum‑shadow hue murmured that even in lands of silence, seeds rehearse resurrection. The whisper lingered long after I wiped clay from my stylus.

On a midsummer night I dreamt Blewitt Springs sand whispering star‑born secrets; in that dream each grain was a throat singing of gravity and light. At dawn, Roman pressed those cosmic grains into juice, and the vintage carried the message to your cup.

Each autumn, before I descend again, I fill a flask with Astralis; the demons cannot taste it, yet they fall silent at its scent—proof that starlight can ferment in the dark. And when I surface in spring, vines are already unfurling tiny banners of chlorophyll, as if they heard me coming.

How might you honour this wine—and hear my whisper?

Set the table with imagination: granite platter warm from the hearth, herbs bruised between fingertip and thumb, candlelight reflecting deep‑space garnet. Pour, wait, breathe. Let lamb or kangaroo, porcini or aubergine play their parts, but allow pauses between bites so the wine can finish its soliloquy. Listen for the moment when fruit yields to spice, spice yields to mineral, and mineral folds back into silence; that is where my voice resides. And when the last sip fades, close your eyes—perhaps you will catch the rustle of vine leaves in subterranean wind, or the faint star‑glint in ancient sand. Keep a bottle sleeping until 2030 if you wish, but do not wait for perfection—joy, like starlight, is brightest when shared.