Shiraz Shoot-out
Seattle, WA
Tasted Monday, May 9, 2005 by Eric with 1,401 views
Introduction
In February I sat next to Mike Opdahl of Joshua Tree Imports at a tasting in LA, and we had a lot of similar impressions of the wines. (Mike is a managing partner of Joshua Tree Imports who are bringing in an interesting lineup of Australian wines.) A month or so later, Mike noticed a few of my tasting notes on Aussie wines and offered to send me a case of sample to get my impressions, and I was happy to take him up on the offer. It took me a little while, but I finally got around to opening them. Rather than slowly opening these one at a time, I thought it would be more useful to invite a few folks over and open them all at once in a blind format. So tonight 7 of us assembled to work through this lineup.
I asked people to score the wines on a 100-point scale, but the scores for nearly all of the wines were homogeneous (averaging to 86 points). What was more clear was the wine that people picked in each flight as their favorite. The Journeys End wines were probably the surprise of the tasting, taking a lot of votes for the favorite wines and showing well across their lineup.
Flight 1 (4 Notes)
In the opening flight the Warrenmang and TwoFold were preferred, taking 5 of 7 favorite votes between them and the edge to the Warrenmang.
Flight 2 (4 Notes)
The second flight was a bit saddled with two deeply flawed wines. Most tasters chose the Journeys End Beginning as their favorite.
Flight 3 (4 Notes)
The Journeys End again ended up on top taking a majority of votes with the rest going to the Dutschke St. Jakobi. These two favored wines each averaged 89+ points from the tasters whereas every other wine to this point was 86+.
Flight 4 (4 Notes)
I was inspired to add on a flight from my cellar to see how it might stand up, hence the last flight of four. This flight was bagged, popped and poured, single blind to me and double-blind to everyone else. People were getting a bit tired and worked on the palate, but everyone wanted to linger over these. For me the MP 9 was the wine of the tasting, narrowly edging out the Journeys End Arrival.
2002 Journeys End Vineyards Shiraz Ascent McLaren Vale 83 Points
Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, McLaren Vale
The fairly reticent nose shows spice, plum, raspberry and some white pepper. The palate is pleasant, straightforward, fairly monolithic, somewhat bitter with air. Some heat on the finish.
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2002 Warrenmang Shiraz Black Puma 91 Points
Australia, Victoria, Western Victoria, Pyrenees
This was one of my favorite wines of the tasting. The nose is huge and soaring with spearmint, eucalyptus, pepper and tar. The palate is vibrant, loaded with black and red fruits, tight but promising, showing terrific structure. The finish is huge with lingering flavors of eucalypt.
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2002 TwoFold Shiraz Heathcote 84 Points
Australia, Victoria, Central Victoria, Heathcote
The nose shows grape jelly with light notes of mint. With air this gets more ripe and shows tar, soy and roasted plum, changing constantly. The palate however is fairly tight and astringent, a little sour.
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2003 Mad Dog Shiraz 86 Points
Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley
Hmm, this has an odd nose, a bit green, stemmy and herbal at first. However, as odd as the nose was, the palate was fantastic. Bright and loaded with red fruit, absolutely mouthfilling, getting better and better with air. At first I scored this 82, but as it breathed it moved up considerably.
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