McLaren Vale just south of Australia's wine capital Adelaide is certainly enjoying the spotlight of fashion at the moment and the family firm of d'Arenberg is one of the most important producers there. They make a wide range of sometimes rather exasperatingly cutely named wines, reds generally more successful than white. I have found a number of the reds rather soupy and exaggerated in recent vintages but this particular bottling of their equal blend of Grenache and Shiraz really hit the spot for me when I tasted it recently in the first crispness of autumn.
There is something very autumnal about it, both its overtones of (the attractive aspects of) damp undergrowth on the nose and the suggestion of dried leaves on the palate. Altogether it is a most comforting brew – and somehow more of a brew than a ferment in its warm, comforting embrace. Unlike many an Australian all-Shiraz, which can be bracing rather than embracing and just too tannic and angular for its own good, this blend fills in all the holes and gently insinuates itself all over the palate. It is a whacking 15 per cent alcohol according to the label but carries it well.
The wine is available in Australia for 14 to 15 Australian dollars a bottle, about 18 dollars in the US and usually sells for £8.49 chez Oddbins in the UK. But from now until 28 September, Brits, it is part of Oddbins' special offer on about 30 mixed North American and Australian wines whereby there's a discount of 15 per cent whenever two bottles from this selection are bought and 20 per cent if a dozen are bought, bringing the per bottle price down to £7.22 and £6.79 respectively – verily a bargain.
For tasting notes, scores, suggested drinking periods and information on prices and availability on many more current Australian Shirazes, including Penfolds Grange, see purple pages.
