Made in a style some love and others love to loathe. For me, it’s a now and then proposition. I’m happy wines like this still exist even if my buying habits have drifted elsewhere.
High grade toasty, charry vanilla oak and it’s laid on thick. Intensely sweet fruit will gobble it up over time. A raisin and caramel edge but boisterous fresher black and purple berries animate the palate. Layered with rich chocolate, animal hide, licorice, soy, cloves and other baking spices. A big’un for sure with a spirity edge, but otherwise balanced with very fine tannin and no issues regarding length. I’d be laying it down for a number of years myself. 93+
Region: McLaren Vale
Alcohol: 15.0%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $50
Tasted: July 2013
Great opening paragraph. I buy less and less of these styled wines, but I would be shattered if told they were to no longer exist. The best versions (such as this one) of old school richness and winery build are not only extremely popular, but very well made, and one cannot state that we spent thirty odd years until recently making no good wines whatsoever.
I love to visit this style now and then, and all of us know some friends and drinking buddies who swoon over them. If you can’t enjoy yourself drinking with a happy friend, then you’re doing it wrong. HJ is right up this alley. Glorious, decadent, yet very authentic and multi layered.
It is an authentic wine and I think it’s really important to stress that. The term “authenticity” seems to have been hijacked by a number of different interest groups – no reason not to use the term of course. Semiotic warfare isn’t just a tool for the vanguard.
I distinctly remember a holiday in Melbourne a couple of years back. My brother and I had been drinking extremely good but very subtle wines. I needed a change so he pulled the 2005 Oliver’s Taranga HJ Reserve Shiraz out of his cellar. My grateful response was “Yes, that’s exactly what I needed. Thank you.”