Best in the Last Thirty Days
Cam Wheeler at Appellation Australia has invited me to follow on from him in a meme for the wineblogosphere started by Beau at Basic Juice. The idea is that you nominate the best wine that you have had in the past 30 days and then pass the baton on to a fellow wine blogger as well as a food blogger.

Well I can’t top Cam’s tasting of Seppelt’s 1905 Para Liqueur Vintage Tawny. That is a rare and wonderful privilege that few experience. However over on my other blog, Tasting Notes, I have been putting up notes on some recent and very special Shiraz wines from the 2003 vintage in Australia. So far the highest scoring wine has been Torbreck’s The Struie, so that should rate as the best but its not a reach to say that The Struie is a bottle full of outstanding wine. Let’s be a little more selective. If I was allowed to go back 60 days I would pick Winter Creek’s wonderful single vineyard Shiraz. A truly excellent example of Barossa Shiraz kissed with French oak, which is how Aussie Shiraz should be kissed.

I can hear others saying. “Please keep within the 30 days”. OK, in that case the wine has to be the Tim Smith Wines Barossa Valley Shiraz 2003. While not inexpensive at $39.99USD it is not a lot to pay for something special from downunder. The wine is made with bunch fermentation, lees aging, and some barrel fermentation. The color is a dense cherry red with red edge. The aromas are rich and ripe with notes of blackberry, vanilla and coconut; there is a little ethyl acetate (EA) but it does not detract from the wine. On the palate it’s full bodied with excellent depth, clean acidity and fine tannins. A toasted note tops the finish. Flavors of toasted coconut, blackberry and vanilla carry extremely well onto the palate and integrate with the sweetness of the fruit. By savoring the wine I was able to taste it over 5 days. At 24 hours the acidity was a little more biting but it was still a very impressive wine with more flavors on the palate than nose. A glass tasted after five days was port-like with burnt, tarry almost camphor characters; very attractive and still intact. 18.5/20, 93/100. 14.5% alcohol. Tasted August 24-29, 2005.

To pass the meme on I nominate from wine blogging Jathan from Wine Expression and for food blogging Anthony at spiceblog.