From the category archives:

Australia

Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Cabernet

January 16, 2012
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I don’t remember the vintage of this bottle, and the photograph I took on my phone isn’t detailed enough to remind me. But I suppose the point of any given Jacob’s Creek wine is that the year of bottling, weather conditions during grape growth and whether or not Belgium had a government when the harvesting [...]

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Some Young Punks Fierce Allure 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon

January 9, 2012
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This all-Australian (but international in outlook) Cabernet Sauvignon is one of the best of a pretty good (and very big) batch of wines I tried over the Christmas period. Among some solid Rioja and Bordeaux it was nice to try an Australian varietal I wouldn’t normally favour, and to find it full of character and flavour. [...]

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Some Young Punks Naked on Roller Skates 2010 Shiraz–Mataro

December 12, 2011
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There’s a whole string of intrigue and mystery attached to this excellent Shiraz-heavy blend from Australia’s Some Young Punks. The pulp fiction label will split serious wine buyers down the middle, of course; and those that are most serious about wine might perhaps be put off. I’d hope not, though, as the contents of their [...]

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Ladies who Shoot their Lunch 2009 Shiraz

November 4, 2011
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I first came across the Ladies who Shoot their Lunch Shiraz at a Naked Wines tasting about a year or so ago. At the time I was knocked out by the complexity of the wine. I was accustomed to Australian Shiraz that was all about big, gobby mouthfuls of fruit. But this wine was something [...]

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SPAR Butterfly Dreaming Grenache Shiraz Mourvèdre

October 17, 2011
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It’s not often I have the distinct pleasure of shopping for my wine in SPAR, and I say that without a trace of irony. As far as smaller supermarket retailers go, my sporadic visits over the years have found SPAR to be a surprisingly viable wine-buying destination – especially the relatively rare larger model known, [...]

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2009 Bella Riva Sangiovese/Merlot

September 9, 2011
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Bella Riva is Italian for “beautiful riverbank” according to the winery website and seeing as the vines are situated overlooking the King River in the King Valley of the state of Victoria in Australia. Bella Riva is part of one of the big players in Australian wine, the De Bortoli winery. De Bortoli makes a [...]

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Willow Bridge Estate Black Dog Shiraz 2008

August 30, 2011
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Australia is constantly surprising me nowadays. First it was Mac Forbes’ Syrah and now I have been introduced to a new wine region of SW Western Australia, the Ferguson Valley. The Ferguson Valley is located between Perth and the renowned wine region, Margaret River Valley.  It’s here where you will find Willow Bridge Estate. The [...]

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Shiraz – Australia’s Most Popular Grape?

August 4, 2011
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Ask any red wine drinker which grape they would most associate with Australia and the answer would almost certainly be “Shiraz“. This big blockbuster of a red wine grape has become synonymous with the Australian wine industry, despite the fact that it only started being taken seriously in the 1990s. Until the 1990s the Shiraz [...]

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Mac Forbes, 2007 Yarra Valley Syrah, NOT Shiraz….

July 25, 2011
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Blind tastings are always tricky: especially nowadays where winemakers are pushing the boundaries of what can be done with grapes in widely diverse regions of the world. So it was with a bit of trepidation when Le Meurice sommelier Estelle Touzey asked me what I thought she had poured for me recently at a blind [...]

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Deen De Bortoli Vats 10 & 12 Pinot Noir and Sangiovese at The Wapping Project

July 7, 2011
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Wapping Hydraulic Power Station was built in 1890, and if the builders had known it would one day play host to upturned Japanese wedding dresses suspended above moodily-lit tranquil pools of water in the name of art – or that young professionals on sightseeing stag dos would sip medium bodied red wines and have animated [...]

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McGuigan Bin No.578 Merlot 2010

July 4, 2011
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For all the ease of use and endless pondering the internet has bought to wine buying, sometimes (all too often?) the purchase of a bottle can come down to what looks best out of the discounted bottles at the nearest supermarket. It’s fair enough – modern life is often complicated enough without turning the purchase [...]

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