Wine Club - Aussie Shiraz Theme

Tasted Friday, October 27, 2023 by mfimiani47 with 87 views

Introduction

Our wine club met up. The general theme switches each month and we decided to pursue Australian Shiraz for this month's event. LCBO had some great sales on some well-priced Australian Shiraz so we thought we'd give it a go. Normally we taste semi-blind (we know what bottles we are tasting but not the order they are poured in), but given Torbreck's unique bottle shape, opted to drink these wines non-blind.

The wines were:

- 2019 Torbreck Struie
- 2018 Mitolo Savitar Shiraz
- 2019 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Shiraz
- 2019 Shaw & Smith Shiraz

Flight 1 (4 Notes)

  • 2019 Torbreck Shiraz The Struie 94 Points

    Australia, South Australia, Barossa

    A much more refined wine than I was anticipating. You really get a sense of the quality of the fruit. This is plush with very fine tannins. In a perfect place now and I don't know if/how this gets any better. Just an incredibly well-made wine.

    *Drank this in a lineup of other similarly priced Aussie Shiraz. This was the group's favourite*

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  • 2019 Leeuwin Estate Shiraz Art Series 91 Points

    Australia, Western Australia, South West Australia, Margaret River

    Much more red-fruited than anticipated. More red in colour with a great level of acidity. This needs time as it never really unfurled in the glass.

    I wouldn't guess Australian Shiraz if this was served blind. It felt like this could have been made in Italy given the level of acidity, its structure and the tannins.

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  • 2018 Mitolo Shiraz Savitar 92 Points

    Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, McLaren Vale

    A deep and brooding nose with hints of vanilla. This has the structure to go the distance and I have no doubt that it will. Very long finish.

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  • 2019 Shaw and Smith Shiraz 90 Points

    Australia, South Australia, Mount Lofty Ranges, Adelaide Hills

    Barnyard funk on the nose that slowly dissipates with time. The palate is tart, grippy and bright. Very interesting to try and not what i necessarily anticipate in terms of Australian Shiraz.

    This was a great wine to learn something from as it shows how preconceived notions/marketing - in this case around what to expect from an Australian Shiraz - do no service to wine lovers.

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Closing

As a group everyone agreed that the Struie was leaps and bounds ahead of the pack. The Shaw & Smith was probably the most interesting of the 4, with the Leeuwin not really coming to life; though I suspect this just needs a healthy amount of bottle age to perform.

Group rank:

(1) 2019 Torbreck Struie
(2) 2019 Mitolo Savitar Shiraz
(3) 2019 Shaw & Smith Shiraz
(4) 2019 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Shiraz

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