The JC's Own Stratum Shiraz 2024 is a bright, juicy Barossa Valley Shiraz built for drinking rather than cellaring heroics. Sourced from red clay over limestone and schist at Greenock, it trades the region's heavier register for freshness and lift.

Dark cherry and satsuma plum lead, with cola, aniseed and a scattering of dried alpine herbs behind them. Fermentation in cement leaves the fruit unvarnished, so the aromatics are pure Shiraz — black pepper, a little graphite, a savoury edge that keeps the ripeness honest.

The palate is generous but never thick. Fifteen months on lees in cement has given the Stratum 2024 a supple, almost silky flow, and the tannins are chalky and fine-grained rather than grippy. Bottled unfined and unfiltered, it finishes long and faintly briny, with acidity that snaps the fruit back into line.

Serve it with lamb shoulder cooked slowly with rosemary and garlic, a charred rib-eye, or something as simple as sausages off the barbecue with grilled capsicum. Chorizo, aged cheddar and mushroom-heavy pasta all work.

Drink from now through to about 2032. There is enough structure in this Barossa Valley Shiraz to reward five or six years in the rack, though the appeal of the 2024 lies in its immediacy — a wine happiest opened on a weeknight.