A warm and very dry year in the Hunter Valley and here we have a bold and complex Shiraz articulating it. 20 months in French oak, 40% of it new. Flagship heroics. What’s really interesting is how well it pulls it off.
A slightly lifted nose offers up the beginnings of bottle age tertiary characters; stressed leather, hung meat, tomato seeds and sanguine characters. There’s still a hell of a lot of primary fruit though. Blackberry and plum seguing smoothly into raspberry and vanilla at the end of the line. Choc-licorice bullets abound and there’s a bit of pepper and clove spice hanging about. Has that regional earthen twist which gets me every time. The texture is mellowing but the structure will hold it for a lot longer yet. I polished off the bottle over two days and thought it kept tasting better until the last drop. 95
Region: Hunter Valley
Alcohol: 14.5%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $130
Tasted: August 2013
Picked up a few of these from Cru Bar a couple of years ago for $40 each. Looks like a good deal and some time on my side!
A very smart pickup indeed, especially as the price has just risen from $100 to $130 dollars. Absolutely no rush to drink them either…although it does taste bloody good now.
I once found some in a bargain bin at some place in Fortitude Valley opposite where the Irish pub used to be. Think they were $30 a bottle. All gone now. One was a bit bretty, the others excellent.
MC
There used to be quite a bit of Meerea Park gear available around Brisbane (and at keen prices) but I don’t see it as much these days. Of course that could be related to me spending less time scouting bottle shops. Noticed that this is no longer the Meerea Park “flagship” either. They’ve made a Meerea Park “Black” Shiraz at $180.