Over the past several weeks I've gone through nearly a case of the 2001 and 2002 vintages of this wine, none of which was particularly good or drinkable; I fear it had either gone bad in transit to North America or else was suffering from a brettanomyces infection of some degree. After one too many bottles, opened and not much drunk, of strange, mousy, Band-Aid-y shiraz, I gave up, gave away the last few bottles, and glumly realized that I still have a few cases of this wine from 2003, 2004, and 2005. After opening this bottle, though, I feel much better about the situation.
At first, the smell of this wine could be mistaken for one of those gargantuan bath cubes that elderly German women seem to love so much, with hints of eucalyptus and sweet, chalky dirt. The color's still a vibrant, youthful purple; it doesn't smell particularly aged (which is a wonderful thing to me after the disappointment of the '01 and '02). There's a suggestion of sweet, smoky, bacon-wrapped prunes here too: it smells rich and wonderfully Christmas-y.
The taste of the wine is an elegant, shocking contrast to the smell of it. Instead of a fat, blowsy, American-via-South Australia shiraz, you get a lean, nervy, racy, well-acided syrah with supple dusty tannins and a finish that goes on for an age. It's the sort of wine you'd expect Kermit Lynch to import: strong enough for a New World hedonistic-jammy-fruit enthusiast, but elegant enough for Alice Feiring too. The overall impression is of restraint, of a wine that could just have easily gone the way of Barwang shiraz but instead decide to stop halfway. There is beauty in restraint, after all.
At first, the smell of this wine could be mistaken for one of those gargantuan bath cubes that elderly German women seem to love so much, with hints of eucalyptus and sweet, chalky dirt. The color's still a vibrant, youthful purple; it doesn't smell particularly aged (which is a wonderful thing to me after the disappointment of the '01 and '02). There's a suggestion of sweet, smoky, bacon-wrapped prunes here too: it smells rich and wonderfully Christmas-y.
The taste of the wine is an elegant, shocking contrast to the smell of it. Instead of a fat, blowsy, American-via-South Australia shiraz, you get a lean, nervy, racy, well-acided syrah with supple dusty tannins and a finish that goes on for an age. It's the sort of wine you'd expect Kermit Lynch to import: strong enough for a New World hedonistic-jammy-fruit enthusiast, but elegant enough for Alice Feiring too. The overall impression is of restraint, of a wine that could just have easily gone the way of Barwang shiraz but instead decide to stop halfway. There is beauty in restraint, after all.
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