Lisa is the daughter of Brian McGuigan who was a pioneering Aussie winemaker back in the 1980s. Sadly McGuigans became such a success that quality was inevitably sacrificed for profit, presumably at the shareholders orders as I once met Brian and his wife, Faye, and they were passionate about making good wine.

Lisa, no doubt inspired by her father, apparently set out to produce superior wines. It seems that once again commercial success got in the way of producing good wine. It’s not necessarily a conscious choice, but if your brand expands too quickly you need to source additional grapes over which you have no control, and production has to move out of the winery and into a commercially viable factory. The presentation is excellent – the wine unfortunately is not. This Merlot is pretty poor, and fairly pricey. My advice is give it a miss.