“It may be tempting to underestimate this small producer from Western Australia but do so at your own peril.”
- Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Battles focuses on a small collection of tiny-quantity wines from a variety of regions (at this stage, the Perth Hills, Margaret River, Great Southern and Geographe) made with great attention to detail, and vineyard provenance top of mind.
Only founded in 2019 the winery is already known on the national & international wine critics scene….
James Halliday 5 Star Winery
&…
WA Good Food Guide Wine of the Year 2023
(Frankland River Shiraz 2022)
Frankland River Shiraz 2023 (New Release)
96 Points Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
96 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion
Lateralis Shiraz, Frankland River 2022
97 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Burnside Chardonnay 2023 (New Release)
96 Points Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
97 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion
97 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
Granitis Shiraz, Perth Hills 2023 (New Release)
96 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion
Hosted by Chief Winemaker Lance Parkin
Masterclass: 5:30-7pm, 7 Wines with nibbles - Booked Out
Dinner: 7:30pm, 7 Wines with 4 Courses $95
Monday October 21st
About Battles Wines:
Battles Wine was started by friends Lance Parkin (winemaker) and Kris Ambrozkiewicz (sommelier, sales). Lance was a winemaker at Houghton in the Swan Valley before the sale to the Yukich family in '19, at which point the Swan Valley-based component of the Houghton team disbanded and formed their own ventures. Battles focuses on a small collection of tiny-quantity wines from a variety of regions (at this stage, the Perth Hills, Margaret River, Great Southern and Geographe) made with great attention to detail, and vineyard provenance top of mind. Kris Ambrozkiewicz (aka Ambro) has a longstanding and intense love of wine, an impressively honed bank of wine knowledge and years of sales experience.
Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
The Wine List
1st Bracket
Blendaberg 2024 (Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Pinot Grigio), Our Price $29
2023 Blendaberg shows vibrancy with intense fruit characters of grapefruit, mandarin, finger lime and a delicate ginger spice note. Lingering, long and dry, with an upfront silky texture. There is a great balance between the salivating acid, powerful fruit intensity yet delicacy in it's palate weight.
battlewines.com.au
Pinot Grigio 2024, Our Price $29
This wine shows elegance yet power, with intense fruit characters of pear, green melon and apple, with a hint of white flowers. A nicely weighted and textural palate frames the wine and gives lingering spice notes.
battlewines.com.au
Grilled haloumi | fragrant eggplant
2nd Course
Battles Margaret River Chardonnay 2023, Our Price $50
The nuts and bolts: fruit from a single vineyard in Burnside, all Gingin clone, hand picked, whole-bunch pressed and fermented on full solids, with over half going through mlf and 25% new oak with a range of barrel sizes, and aged nine months. The outcome: grapefruit and white peach, freshly sliced ginger and peppery galangal, flinty and a little funky. Lovely texture with flavours of creamed honey and clotted cream and the oak neatly tucked in. Moreish and savoury – such a good drink.
95 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
Burnside Chardonnay 2023 (New Release), Our Price $75
The top chardonnay for Battles is a barrel selection – only three chosen – and this is scintillating. Flinty and funky, with mouth-watering flavours of grapefruit, white peach and ginger spice alongside a saline tang, with the oak unobtrusive. This is defined and electrifying, and the palate is long extended by the acidity and flavours. An excellent wine in anyone’s book; alas, only 80 dozen made. Get in quick.
97 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
The 2023 Burnside Chardonnay hails from a mild, long and dry season. So far, the wines I have tasted echo the conditions of the year—they ooze restraint, harmony and minerality, all fine things. So here, the wine shows us fresh crumpled curry leaves, scratched lime, sea salt, green olive brine, ripe white peach and crushed shells. In the mouth, this is a beauty: balanced, achingly intense and long, a spooling iteration of the much-loved (by me) 2022 vintage. This is a superlative wine.
97 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate (July 2024)
Cucumber seared salmon | shiitake | salsa verde
3rd Course
Temranillo 2023, Our Price N/A
Fruit off the Aravina vineyard, this is delightfully savoury, rustic and an excellent go-to wine. It flaunts dark cherries, kirsch, cola and a splash of sarsaparilla, lots of woodsy spices, too. Leaning towards mid-weighted, with refreshing acidity matched to the sandy, persuasive tannins.
95 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
Malbec 2023, Our Price $32
Such a polished, refined malbec; so if you’re expecting a more rustic wine, this is almost too lovely and pure. It still has a wave of dark fruit – all black cherries and blueberries, baking spices and the smell of rosewood, plus new leather. Fuller-bodied but not at all heavy with pomace-like tannins and a certain vitality within. Craving barbecue meats while tasting this.
94 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
Pancetta wrapped chicken | melted beetroot | orange & fennel salad
4th Course
Granitis Shiraz, Perth Hills 2023 (New Release), Our Price $45
Co-fermented with 3% viognier, 15% whole-bunches and aged 10 months in older French oak puncheons. Gee I love this wine. The aromatic variety is on full display with its florals, Middle Eastern spices and the smell of a hot road during a Perth summer. Yet, there’s a coolness across the palate, a lightness of touch thanks to fine tannins and lithe acidity. This makes me excited to drink shiraz again.
96 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
Frankland River Shiraz 2023 (New Release) Our Price $45
96 Points Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
This is aged in 30% new French oak puncheons, yet superbly integrated while adding cedary, woodsy spices to the wine. Tasting this next to the Granitis, with fruit from the Perth Hills, is so noteworthy as it perfectly highlights the differences of place as much as the winemaking. It has the inkiness of Frankland River (from the Swinney vineyard) – all dark fruit, licorice, pepper and tar. Full-bodied, yet the tannins are beautifully plump, ripe and velvety, caressing the palate along the way to a long finish.
96 Points Jane Faulkner, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2024)
Lateralis Shiraz, Frankland River 2022, Our Price $75
The 2022 Lateralis Shiraz hails from Frankland River, and it is effusive in its display of red dirt, rust flakes, pluming iodine and nori. It's all black and purple, with rust-colored inflections, and the tannins are chalky, pervasive and coating. Frankland River is fast becoming one of the great regions for Shiraz, and it is wines like this one that show the capabilities of the terroir in forming wines of equal precision and width, power and persistence. A pleasure, this is in its infancy, with a long life ahead. All class here. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. I took a final sip of this, after I had finished the note, just before pouring the rest of the glass out. I've bumped it up a point—those tannins are just so good, thick, chewy, seductive almost. But of the earth. Awesome.
97 Points Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate (August 2023)