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For most of us, the wine regions of Europe are fairly familiar. We don’t need to have a massive amount of wine knowledge to put Chianti and Frascati in Italy, Rioja in Spain and the Rhone Valley in France and to have an idea of the sorts of wine to expect from there. However Australia, for many experienced wine drinkers, is just Australia. You have to be quite a wine aficionado to know that the cool Hunter Valley is the place for Semillon; that Cabernet from Western Australia has fresh, crisp, green pepper aromas, and that Riesling is particularly good from the cool Eden and Clare Valleys. Coonawarra is cool for Cabernet and Barossa is stunning for Shiraz.
There aren’t too many £4.99 Barossa Shirazes, because quality is just better. We only tasted six wines and they were all deeply aromatic, spicy and long-flavoured. Pick a wine with Barossa on the label and you are pretty much guaranteed a damn fine wine.
Our favourite was head, shoulders, knees and toes above almost any other wine available for £7.99. Waitrose own label Barossa Shiraz 2005, which is made in partnership with St Hallett, is absolutely delicious. You absolutely could not do better, particularly for a dinner party, than this stonking wine. The smell is spicy and herbal and we unanimously loved it. The taste is rich and sweet, but ends dryly. Pat said it was “really scrummy” and I was chuffed that I’d gone a little mad last time it was on offer and had lined my wine cupboard with it.
Two Hands, Gnarly Dudes, 2006 is £14.99 from Oddbins. It smelt appealingly of blackcurrant sorbet and John and Lorraine found treacle. Ann thought it tasted of blackcurrant jam and John noticed the fresh acidity and great balance.
Stamford Brook, Shiraz/Viognier 2006 is a very reasonable £5.99 from Sainsbury’s. The aroma was initially of chocolate or coffee but evolved to burnt toast over about an hour. The alcohol was pretty warm and taste absolutely typical – baked and rubbery.
Tesco Finest, Barossa Old Vines Shiraz 2005 is £9.99 and had a dark, plummy smell, with a touch of tropical fruit, which attracted us initially but, like the unadvised one night stand, did not stand up well over time, and the joy went out of it quickly. The taste was pretty reasonable – baked and quite ripe, with mint on the end. It scored the same as St Hallet, Gamekeeper’s Reserve 2006, which is an interesting blend of Shiraz, Grenache and Touriga, a port grape, and is £6.98 from Asda. The smell was fruity, rather than oaky or savoury, but the taste was spicy, rich and Ann found it “jolly nice”. A good evening for professional wine tasting phrases!
Our least favourite was Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference 2006, at £6.99, but this is by no means a poor wine. The smell is reluctant; to say the least and we found the taste a little sweet and didn’t think it would be good with food, particularly savoury, meaty sauces.
An altogether very satisfactory tasting.