97 points – “75/25% cabernet sauvignon/touriga nacional. There’s something agreeably old school about this, but it’s also clearly the product of a refined approach, in both vineyard and winery. When I say old school, I’m going back much further than what we generally regard as such. It feels bygone, in a very good way. Oak performs a function, but it doesn’t headline, fruit is ripe but not pushed. Plush blue and red florals, liqueur cherry, dark chocolate, toasted malt, licorice, caraway, so much iodine and kelp, like wintery sea-lashed rocks, a fresh blueberry levity, lavender and ground fresh rosemary, a cabernet leafiness levelling. Complex, layered and abundant, but savoury with it. What a lovely bottle this is.” – Marcus Ellis (Wine Companion, August 2024)

96 points - "Steve Pannell planted touriga on his Koomilya vineyard with the intention of making a broody Iberian blend with some tempranillo, graciano and mataro thrown in the mix, but in the end a more noble French bedfellow was found. There’s something about the way these two tannin forward varieties interlock and expand that really works, delivering beautifully plush dark fruit with real low end tension and torque." - Nick Ryan (The Weekend Australian)

95 points - "The Touriga rides high here giving the wine a Port-like violet perfume, raspberry, blackcurrant, a jubey pop of fruit, five spice and oyster shell and new car smell (leather seats, a given). It’s fleshy and plump, a bouncy amount of ripe dark fruit, quite some mouth-perfume, plush velour tannin, juicy and jellied to close, and long with it. Such fun. So interesting and distinctive. I love it." - Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)

93 points - "The 2021 Cabernet Touriga is leafy, laden with tobacco and cassis, violets and lifted perfume. In the mouth, the wine is succulent and gently chewy, with medicinal herbs, dusty kicked earth, cardamom pod, amaro-esque herbs and tapenade. An enduringly complex and interesting wine to behold. As usual for Steve Pannell, it is imbued with a profusion of natural-feeling tannins that shape the wine in the mouth and through the finish. While the wine has rustic persuasions, both aromatically and in the flavor profile, the finish is long and clean." - Erin Larkin (The Wine Advocate)

Upon purchasing the vineyard in 2012 I saw it as an ideal place to create blends that included grape varieties I believe will see McLaren Vale into the future, and further, complement the traditional varieties of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

I grafted two contoured and terraced blocks on deep red soil closest to the scrub at the top of the south-facing slope to Touriga Nacional with the intention of blending with Tempranillo, Graciano and Mataro. Blending with Cabernet Sauvignon was never planned, but as fate would have it, there is a magic between the two varieties that can’t be ignored.