Shirazathon Notes

[wondersofwine]

I attended a special Australian wine tasting in Raleigh May 2nd. Forgot to bring my notes with me but here are some of the high points. We sampled over 20 wines--two semillion, one unoaked chardonnay, and the rest were one merlot, cabernet sauvignons, shiraz or red blends. The $25 charge was waived if you purchased a number of wines that evening.
I may have to revise my attitude on cabs--preferred the Henry's Drive c.s and reserve c.s. to the Henry's Drive shiraz. Would give the 2000 Henry's Drive Reserve Cabernet ($44.99) about 18-18.5 points on a 20-point scale. I also liked the 1998 Irvine Grand Merlot ($59.99) described as Australia's greatest merlot and huge. Liked the Parson's Flat Cabernet/Shiraz blend ($39.99)--another wine from Sparky Marquis who makes the Henry's Drive wines. Four more shiraz wines I liked (bought two of them to take home): 1999 Clos Clare Shiraz ($29.99) rated 95 points by Halliday; 2000 Tin Shed "Single Wire" Shiraz ($39.99) described as big, concentrated wine but unusually polished at the same time; 2000 Jones "LJ" shiraz ($39.99)described as big and pretty with pure, real "fruit" fruit, and 1999 Kay Brothers "Hillside" Shiraz ($49.99). Another blend we tried was the 2000 Massena "Moonlight Run" ($29.99) described as a wonderful Rhone blend from Dan Standish. Big, powerful wine. I agreed that it was big and powerful but it wasn't to my taste. I also disliked the 1998 Tatachilla "McLaren Vale" cabernet sauvignon ($19.99) which Australian critic James Halliday rated 97 points, as high as any in his recent Wine Companion. To me the wine tasted bitter.

[Drew]

Great notes WOW, thanks.

Drew

[winoweenie]

Sounds like my type of tasting WOW. As you can see from the posts, Aussie wines are few and far between here in the desert. Only the big boys have any distribution. Hope you have fun in SD. WW

[newsguy]

WOW,

as i posted last month, the henry's drive cab was my favorite at a tasting of over 200 wines. but my local shop only has the shiraz. they said they had a few cases of the cab and one customer bought the whole lot. so i grabbed a bottle of the shiraz. my search goes on for the cab. nice juice!

[Innkeeper]

Both the '99 and the '00 Henry's Drive Cabs are available from the Southern Hemisphere Wine Center for $22.99. They also have the '00 Reserve for $34.99. That's www.southernwines.com And, they are liberal shippers.

[wondersofwine]

I couldn't find your previous post, newsguy. Was it under Australian wines or wine event or other? I tried a search with your name and Henry's Drive.

[newsguy]

WOW,

my post was under cabs. here's the link:

http://www.wines.com/ubb2/Forum9/HTML/000421.html

IK,

thanks so much for the info. i'm gonna order me some of that 2000 cab ASAP!

[This message has been edited by newsguy (edited 05-09-2002).]

[wondersofwine]

Thanks, newsguy. I had seen and even replied to your earlier post but forgot that Henry's Drive c.s. was your favorite. It is an incredible bargain. And IK's source has a much better price on the c.s. reserve than the wine shop in Raleigh was offering. (I think I bought either one or two bottles of the reserve but am having the wine warehouse hold them for me at present.)

[newsguy]

WOW,

is the reserve that much better than the regular bottling to warrant the extra cost? i loved the regular cab, and can buy 3 bottles of that for the price of 2 of the reserve.

[wondersofwine]

Possibly not. I rated the regular c.s. at 18 or 18.5 on 20-pt. scale (equal to 90 to 92.5 on 100-pt. scale) and you can't go too much higher than that. I just thought it would be interesting to sample both again with maybe more wine in the glass. The wine shop was temporarily out of the regular c.s. but was expecting to get more in.

[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 05-10-2002).]