The Vintages Value List went south this week. Rose & I were just too busy to make it to the tasting room. Rose is cramming for her wine final exam and I find myself working off site more and more... The theme of this week's release is "sun worship" - highlighting wines from warm climates. These wines tend to be relatively high in alcohol as the extra sun and warmth allows the grapes to reach a level of ripeness that sees higher than average brix. Brix is a measure of sugar content in the grape and it is the sugar that gets translated into alcohol during fermentation.
We have is on good authority that the following wines are recommended via our colleague - David Beauroy - ex-chef and wine expert. Here are his notes:
Penmara Reserve Shiraz 2004, Australia – New South Wales, +912782, $17.95, p. 29 Full of spicy black fruit, herbs, nice and complex. Dry with superb structure, and a tasty finish. Drinking very well now, ideal for this kind of unstable weather.
Domaine des Ormes Cuvée Azur 2005, France – AC Côtes du Roussillon, +65912, $17.95, p. 14 Look for a nice summery blue label. Lovely blend of Carignan (60%), Mourvèdre (30%), and Syrah (10%). Very deep/opaque ruby, intense layers of sun dried olives, violets and lavender. Dry, full and delicious.
St Hallett Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, Australia , +15164, $19.95, p. 10 Clean cassis and berry notes with mint and milk chocolate in the background. Nice soft texture, low-medium tannins and balancing acidity round its power (14.5 %) out.
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