Ferngrove, Shiraz, €12.99

 

So enter another Auzzie poised to steal me and my little old world heart away to the great down under. Punching in at €12.99 this little wine offers a tight entry level to the world of austrialian shiraz, or so it seemed. 

Stylishly labelled the team who used the wine as our first video (Keep your eyes peeled for that one) spent some pre match time eyeing up the bottle and explain the devout love we both wished to throw at the feet of this amazingly well branded wine (Sallow? Yes, but the vast numbers of badly labelled good wine which never bought is beyond reality)

Opened with a lovely crack of the screw top the wine started to fill the room with aromas but maturely we decided it need time to breathe.

So finally an hour later we reappeared and offered our nosed up to the wine in the bottle. Textbook. Red and black-currants taking up an interesting dance fleeting in-between one or the other and a well panned out layer of plum. The three working effortlessly to provide the guts of the nose here. Then as expected we were introduced to a light black pepper. And then as if having lured us into a false sense of security the carpet was pulled from under us and behold something we hadn’t expected Blueberry. In Shiraz. Forgive me my doubts but after it showed itself on a Valpol not too long ago and then I thought I was beginning to tipping over to the darker side of insanity. But no, here it was and here it was getting more and more dominant on the nose and too boot we had appearances of cherry vanilla, and liquorice. Let’s just leave the nose saying it left the taste of this a lot to live up to. 

And do that it did. Bashing the door down with blueberry the wine was medium to full bodied, with nice spices of pepper and vanilla. Offer up all it had on the nose. It even showed off a little tannic structure- a glimpse of what the wine might do given a year in the bottle to mellow further. Really a well structured wine and a great surprise. The red fruits holding up in face of their black and blue counterparts. This combining to offer a really interesting examination of the palate which felt sensibly fluid allowing for flavours to flux between one and another but stopping well short of confusing the palate. Really all in all a textbook Shiraz with a few beautiful surprises thrown in.

Score: 76 Points

Mill Wine Cellar: €13.95

Find and Enjoy

Rob