Monday, 1 March 2010
Baileys of Glenrowan 2008 Glenrowan Shiraz
There's a description of a red wine from north-east Victoria that has lurked just below the waterline in my memory since the days when I started developing an interest in wine. The actual identity of the wine, and indeed the accuracy of Hughesy's recollection of the quote in question are both, of course, problematical, but that more or less goes with the nearly-forty year territory.
Whoever it was who made the comment compared the wine to a meal of steak and eggs and a cigar afterwards. That style of red wine wasn't easy to run across in seventies North Queensland, being totally unsuited to the climate, even in what we laughably describe as winter, and probably wasn't too popular elsewhere, apart from a devoted bunch of dedicated wine buffs who'd acquired a taste for the style.
I imagined the wine to be something like a six-foot-four valkyrie woman with a two-horn hat, pigtails down to her waist, two pickhandles across the shoulders who demands your full and undivided attention, unt afterwards, Franz, you vill do the vashing-up, hein?
A harsh mistress, in other words, who demands undivided devotion while she's in the room.
Those impressions were a big factor in making sure that our visit to north-east Victoria at the end of 2006 took in the cellar door at Baileys, since the winery had a reputation for making red wines along those lines. I'd been there before, on my one pre-Madam days trip to the wine country, and had memories of huge red wines and an affectionate recall of the old HJT Liqueur Muscat.
They don't make the wines in that style these days, but the vines are still there, gnarled veterans in the 1904 Block and the 1920s Block, as well as more recent plantings.
Experiences in the tasting room were always likely to lead to a name being added to the mailing list, and when the offer to join the 1870s Club arrived, it was duly taken up.
As a dedicated fan of the region's fortified wines, it seemed like a reasonable way to ensure a regular topping-up of supplies, and there was always the prospect of getting my hands on the modern-day equivalent of those big old reds.
The initial 1870s Club half-dozen featured Shiraz from the older blocks along with a Bundurra Dolce and a fortified. The Shiraz went more or less straight to the wine fridge, since Mr Halliday suggests they're ones to look at some time after 2020, so I had to wait till the second shipment, which included a couple of bottles of the 2008 Glenrowan Shiraz, to have a go at one of the more drink now styles.
Despite the above musings the 2008 Glenrowan Shiraz is an extremely approachable wine. Deep red, generous nose and a luscious mouthfeel with fine tannins and some unexpectedly understated oak characters. In terms of what it's likely to develop into it's still a baby.
An extremely robust bouncy baby, but a baby nonetheless.
