Warm climate South Australian Shiraz; if only I had a dollar for the number of winemakers who make it then lampoon the stuff. That’s cool. I often mock some of my paid work. The funny thing is I still put a lot of effort into it and as a craft it takes a certain kind of skill to pull it off. Kym Teusner pulls this Shiraz off, even if he is amusingly contemptuous of the variety when bottled by itself. I do understand. There’s a lot of crap out there and good vintages of the Joshua and the Avatar red blends will always be more heavily represented at my table. But I’ll keep this handy too.
Aromas and flavours which comfort and sell. Plums, black berries and cherries, Maltesers and Brazil nuts. Well-padded with rather corpulent tannin. Undeniably full-bodied. Yet here’s the rub – it’s not wobbly. Rather it displays definition within these confines. And it reaches through the back-palate like its hungry for more. This is the Albert that I fell in love with from the 2004 vintage. And this is the Albert I will go into bat for today, regardless of how unfashionable that may be. We had a great time together over three days. 94
Region: Barossa Valley
Alcohol: 14.5%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $55
Tasted: June 2014
Irresistable stuff, I agree. Even more so, the Avatar. ‘Kym Kares’; that’s the difference with his approach.
It’s a good tagline too