Shingleback McLaren Vale Shiraz 2001 (review)

88 points

3 gold medals on the front and 1 silver.
Few people would remove their glasses and examine each of the medals. They are printed in about 1.5 font, which means the height of each letter is about the length of a large black ant’s leg (dark but small). So by squinting, I read the medal on the right (?) which a silver from the 2003 Royal Sydney Wine Show Class 32; The next to left a gold medal from the 2003 Royal Brisbane Wine Show Class 53; next a gold medal from the 2003 Royal Hobart Wine Show Class 58; and last on the left (which some people might read first, but I started on the right having come from Shabbat Friday night services) a gold medal from the Winestate Magazine Wine of the Year Top 5 Shiraz - which sounds very impressive.

When a friend brought the bottle over I glanced and saw the medals and didn’t think too much of them one way or another. Two days later I decided to try the wine and recalled I had tasted a Shiraz from them a few months ago at a McLaren Vale grape grower meeting and was surprised by the flavour the first time. When I opened the wine tonight, I poured, sniffed and fairly quickly tasted, because it was already 7:30 PM, the phone wasn’t working because the guy who came to fix the phone, which was broken earlier in the day by other guys from his company…. I just wanted to taste and swallow. I wasn’t impressed, given all those medals. A little later after making some BBQ’d salmon and Sephardic rice for dinner and calming down, I noticed the wine again. My wife Janet calls it ‘easy wine’, because it’s easy to enjoy. “It’s everything I like about Shiraz, big and beefy, easy to like, not too oaking…” There are a lot of wines out there with Shiraz on the label that don’t taste like this one! I’m sorry I didn’t ask the price, but I would guess about $25-$30. It would be a bargain for $18-$20.

There is a lot of up front fruit burst into the mouth. The nose is very bland and grapey with simple but strong -in the alcoholic sense- aromas. The taste is surprisingly different. That burst of fresh fruit, not cooked at all, in the blueberry spectrum, and then a long lightly grainy finish, smooth but noticeably thick. I am trying to dissect the parts of the flavour, but Janet is just drinking, reading and enjoying it. Who is having more fun? I like these kind of wines. There is perceptible oak (which is probably preferred to imperceptible oak), but even though the label touts American oak (of which I am not a big fan anymore), it isn’t that sappy vanilla, but more texture, which I and other tanninaphilics enjoy. Some people may feel this kind of wine is too coarse, but maybe they haven’t tasted Tannat, or then again why would they? I would guess acid has been added to this wine judging from too bright finish, but it is not too unnatural tasting. It doesn’t detract from the overall experience.