Australian Shiraz Tasting results

20 June 2024 (Cuisine magazine Issue 224)

MARY-THÉRÈSE BLAIR sees shiraz as a woman who might be a loud, life-of-the- party character, but has a heart that is pure gold. Stick with her and she’ll reward you in spades.

Shiraz is often perceived as masculine, perhaps because the flavour profile regularly uses typically masculine descriptors. Dark, dense, powerful, rich, meaty, oaky, mature, are all words that, rightly or wrongly, tend to make us think male rather than female. While there is no doubt that shiraz is a big wine – dark, dense and tannic with epic teeth-staining abilities – I firmly believe that if it were a person she would be female. She’s unruly but good-natured, loud at times but with a heart of gold. Great value, the life and soul of the party but also the salt of the earth. At first her big personality seems daunting, but once you get to know and accept her for who she is without comparing her to others, well then you’ve got a friend for life. She’s vibrant in her youth and, like most women, just gets better with age.

Top 10 Australian Shiraz

St Hugo Barossa Shiraz 2020 (South Australia)

I'm forever telling people that having a nostalgic connection to a wine will make it taste better. You can’t help but be transported back to a special time when you drank that wine; it’s not so much a bottle of wine as a time capsule. It helps if the wine tastes fantastic, but I stand by my belief that it’s not essential. If you’re a wine professional, you can’t help but feel proud if a nostalgic wine or wine brand performs well in a tasting as you’re emotionally bonded to it. In October 2018 my now husband proposed to me as we were standing by the vines that grow in front of the St Hugo Restaurant in the Barossa. We were staying at the Jacob’s Creek cottage and my husband decided to make good use of the vivid sunset that emblazoned the skies that night. The day after we had a celebratory lunch at the St Hugo restaurant with a fantastic bottle of wine. Suffice to say I get a fuzzy feeling when I see any St Hugo wine, so to see one richly rewarded as the top shiraz for 2024 is very nice indeed. Deeply coloured with dark fruit, toasted spice and liquorice aromas on the nose which leads into a full-bodied and ripe palate resplendent with dark, sweet fruit, big and bold yet finely grained tannins and youthful vibrance. The purity of fruit here is obvious in a wine that has incredible complexity and power. (A)