ANOTHER GOODY FROM PENFOLDS
Apr 29 '06
The Bottom Line Tasty, typey Shiraz from Penfold. Very drinkable now.
Welcome, Gentle Readers, to this week’s bi-coastal wine taste off. Brother Pete Ruden and I try and write reviews of the same, or similar, wines each week and let you folks get and idea about what the wine is about from two different writers. Our attempt to review the Ravenswood 2002 Monte Rosso zin was foiled by UPS not delivering Pete’s wine shipment of “Olive Oil” (don’t get me started on this wine shipping thing) until next Monday; we have hopes for a review of the R’wood next weekend. Our decision was to pick an Australian Shiraz in the $20 range. Pete’s review should be posted about now and I refer you to his fine epinion.
PENFOLDS
After two (2) days of shopping for a wine that met the criteria I found a 2000 Penfold’s Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz. I paid $18.75 for the bottle at our local Holiday Market in Cottonwood, CA. Penfold’s history is available at Penfolds.com.au.
They have been around since the mid 1800s. The founder, Dr. Christopher Rawson Penfold, held strong beliefs about the medicinal qualities of wine. He brought some French cuttings with him when he immigrated to Australia from England. He planted his first cuttings in 1854 and rest, as they say, is history.
THE WINE
The grapes that produced this bottle of wine come from Coonawarra, “a cool climate” in South Australia. The cork (real cork) pulled smoothly and I got an initial sense that the wine was going to be characterized by strong fruit flavors; not bad, just a lot of berries and like fruit essences dancing around my kitchen. I let the wine rest for an hour.
A tasting pour an hour later revealed a dark, rich purple wine with consistent color across the glass. The wine is six (6) years old and has lost the thinning characteristics of young wine around the edge of the glass. A swirl showed the wine sheeting the glass well and some very good-looking legs; 13.5% alcohol.
The wine gave off more spice smells than I expected. As noted above, my initial thoughts were that this was going to be a wine strongly characterized by berries and other macerated fruit. I was wrong, there is a pleasantly distinct spice quality to the wine that I should have expected as Shiraz is showing up much more frequently on the dinner table.
The wine is very soft in the front of the mouth, entering gently and pleasantly, sorta’ saying “G’day mate, what’s for supper?” As the wine moves back tannins become very evident, not bitter/off-putting tannins, but they sure are there and ask to be considered and evaluated. Well, cool, they’re there and I like them. I’d wager that they weren’t very pleasant when the wine was a bit younger, they’re just about right in April of 㤎.
The mouthfeel is medium at the first taste, but increases as the wine opens a bit and dinner approaches. New York strips are on the menu tonight and the wine pairing is excellent. I’d bet that this wine dances even better with some nice, spring lamb; it is more than adequate pairing for the steak. The finish is very long and the tannins still hang in there along with a bit of vanilla.
CONCLUSION
This is a pretty good bottle of wine. I think that I’d like it more if it were a $12 bottle as opposed to the suggested $23 from the winery. You certainly can’t get hurt at $18.75 but we are very lucky to have such a wide variety of wines that are very good in the $10-$12 range. I recommend the wine with only that one reservation. My wife is working tonight, there’s a bunch of sports on TV. tonight and the wine says that I can indulge myself and drink most of the bottle. I’m not driving anywhere, we’re cooling down from the 98 degree temps of yesterday, life is good. So is this wine, three stars from sweetpaulie. Salud!
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Epinions.com ID:
sweetpaulie
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Member: Paul Frye
Location: Cottonwood, CA
Reviews written: 129
Trusted by: 164 members
About Me:
Good friends, good food and good books are the requisites of life. God will help.
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