2014 Hentley Farm Shiraz The Beauty

Community Tasting Notes (8) Avg Score: 92.9 points

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  1/5/2024 - peter.mancell@mfg.com.au Likes this wine: 94 Points

  Still very enjoyable!

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  1/3/2022 - sfwinelover1 Likes this wine: 92 Points

  One off purchase ($36.99) from the big box wine store about 4.5 years ago. On the nose and palate, intense notes of violets, blue and blackberries, black and red currants, earthy minerality, white pepper, smoke and a bit of black coffee. Deep purple, medium bodied, medium thick legs. Intense acidity on the pour, medium++ tannins, no heat. God complexity, VG intensity and persistence. Geographically from Barossa but with a heart a lot closer to the recent Cote Rotie than the Amon Ra, this mid-priced, early middle aged, mid abv (14%) wine came out of the bottle with a pleasant and powerful angularity, giving the wine freshness and lift. The structure integrated with about an hour of air, making for a better balanced, if less lifted, wine, and unlike the recent Lewis and Tor cabs, it did seem to lose a bit of focus and energy in the 3 nights it was open, so that it probably peaked at a 93+ but finished closer to a 91-92+. That said, it’s in a good drinking window, one that I’d take advantage of sooner than later, with less air than more. I had this with some unorthodox food pairings, homemade chicken soup one night, mixed Chinese food (pot stickers, smoked pork with mixed veggies and asparagus salmon) the next, and it paired well, as I find N. Rhône’s-style syrahs often do, with those non-obvious choices. Very qualitatively comparable with the Betz Patriarch and the JLC Tres Brûlées Coronas from several months ago, although I’d feel just a bit more optimistic about those bottlings’ upsides. Not memorable, but certainly enjoyable, and solid qpr. As an aside, this is another wine James Halliday is wildly inflationary on; he, Sam Kim, Raymond Chan and Bob Campbell are total homers on ANZA wine, infinitely less reliable and learned than, in more or less descending order (IMO) of WS, Jeb, WA, Vinuous, Suckling and WE, and not to be trusted (the only worse wine critic is Luca Marconi, whose scores border on the delusional, IMO).

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  2/14/2021 - peter.mancell@mfg.com.au Likes this wine: 95 Points

  Superb Barossa Shiraz but in a northern Rhône style....a touch feminine!
  Lovely dark fruit, glorious mid weight texture and long finish.

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  6/6/2020 - Raki Likes this wine: 93 Points

  Wow. This thing is fantastic. She sure is pretty, with a lighter, more delicate style accentuated by a touch of viogner. Reminiciscent almost of Rhône style, rather than the big, heady reds you may expect from the barossa. Soft tannins beautifully integrated at this stage of her evolution. It’s really going down a treat.

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  11/2/2018 - retired_and_roving wrote: 88 Points

  Cork broke apart when opening - very dry - seems strange for such a young wine. Decanted for about 2 hours prior to serving. The color on this is deep dark red/leaning purple. On the nose there are scents of blackberry jam. The palate is not jammy as the nose would indicate, clearly fruit forward but in a soft silky package. The tannins here are pretty supple but overall this seems to want a bit more acidity to provide some lift. The smoothness of mouth texture here calls to mind merlot. This is an easily approachable wine that I think would be very popular if poured at a party. I found it okay but not that interesting.

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