Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Wine Blogging Wednesday #22

Tim from Winecast is hosting this month's Wine Blogging Wednesday and he wants us to seek out the light - light alcohol red wine that is. He also expressed an interest in seeing, amongst other things, if there were Australian Shiraz that met the less than 12.5% criteria. This piqued my interest and offered a perfect excuse to brush aside the dust and explore the cellar.

I was most excited to see that one of my all time favourites did in fact meet the requirement - it comes in at only 12% and it's a Shiraz!

shiraz

This wine is a Yarra Yering 1997 Underhill Shiraz.

The wine comes from the Yarra Valley which is located about an hour's drive east from the centre of Melbourne.

Yarra Yering was started by the unique Dr Bailey Carrodus in 1969. The wines produced are distinctive and as individual as the man himself. Some of the interesting aspects of the winery is that it is dry-irrigated and the vines pruned to produce less then 2 tons per acre. The result are wines with intense colour and fruit flavours and legendary cellaring ability.

Vintage wise, 1997 was a very good season in the Yarra Valley. A cold and wet spring was followed by a hot and dry summer. This resulted in a small but high quality yield - tiny berries that were packed full of flavour.

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Onto the tasting:
It does appreciate being opened and allowed to breathe for a few hours - rich ripe fruit nose, gorgeous depth in colour, a deep red/purple with a tinge of brown, on the palette it's the fruit that comes through, wonderfully balanced without any harsh tannins.

This was a perfect match for the Moroccan slow-cooked Beef.

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