Community Tasting Note

312 Likes this wine:

Saturday, February 27, 2021 - From what it can tell, it appears that the winery offered this description of the 2008 vintage of its Ben Schild Shiraz Reserve:

"Our finest Shiraz is carefully selected from the Schild family vineyards and harvested at optimum ripeness. Following open fermentation the wine has matured in American and Hungarian oak for 17 months."

Here's our review:

Deep purple with hint of brown and light ruby rim. Cherry, herbs and vanilla on nose. Medium body. Exceptionally well rounded mouthfeel. Notes of dark cherry, plum, blackberry, blueberry, cassis, leather and black pepper. Long finish.

When this vintage was released, the professional review with the longest drinking window was that in Wine Spectator, which recommended to drink now through 2018. Most reviewers of various vintages of this wine recommend a 8 year window, if that.

I think there's a case to be made that this wine deserves a drinking window longer than 10 years. For one, the 2008 vintage is drinking very well 13 years later. For another reason, take a look at a couple of recent CellarTracker reviews of even older vintages:

2003 4/12/2020 — 92 points and glowing review by DOUGOGDEN

2004 3/31/2020 — 93 points and very positive review by EFELDHAKE

As DOUGOGDEN noted in his review, "Excellent cellaring helped this last." I'm sure that's true of ours as well.

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