The Art in the bottle

The Tim Adams Shiraz is a wine I had heard a lot about and all good things at that. This always makes me wary, is it going to be like Avatar? The biggest hyped up movie of all time that turns out to be this mess of images and plot that leaves me left to wonder whether or not I have just witnessed the death knell of art and culture.

Where am I going with this? Well, after so many let downs of late by hyped up wines I decided to take a chance and buy a wine I spotted in ... wait for it ... Tesco. Gasp! As mentioned above, I had heard some very good things about the entire Tim Adams range , almost too much.

I am a very sceptical person at the best of times, so I approached this wine with great trepidation. Shiraz is certainly one of my favourite grapes, but it is abused far too often in making truck loads of wine to fill supermarket shelves the world over.

So, what was it like? ... One word, amazing! It ticks all the boxes of a good entry level shiraz should do. It was complex, but smooth and unwilling to be summed up in one bland sentence like very many of its counterparts.

The nose was a complex mix of chocolate, earth, eucalyptus, raspberry jam, leather and a hint of pepper. The palate was equally impressive with intense blackberry, raspberry, blueberry, chocolate, pepper and coffee. A full bodied wine, but with silky tannins that will become smoother with some more bottle age. This wine has the structure to age for many years to come.

While normally retailing at 14.99 it will easily stand up to the likes of d'Arenberg footbolt shiraz, one of the most consistent sub 20 on the market. However at the offer price of 10 euro this is a no brainer. It is extremely rare to get a wine of such complexity at this price.

Score: A or for the purists 90 points.

Thobias