1998 Keith Tulloch The Kester Shiraz Review

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Steve Shipley

My apologies for not having written many posts recently. Having finished and published Wine Sense followed by a large trip to the US and immediately taking on some concentrated consulting work, my ‘retirement’ has been anything but! But I have missed writing and especially writing about wine!

Living in the iconic Hunter Valley wine region two hours north of Sydney, we have a choice of about 150 wineries to visit. From the 30 or so we have visited, we have six or seven we buy from regularly, while continuing to expand and purchase from others. We have made the point to try a new winery or two every month. One recent new entry was Keith Tulloch Wines on Hermitage Road. What a great winery! We were fortunate to have Keith Tulloch, owner and winemaker host our tasting for several hours and what a treat it was. We bought several styles of Semillon and Shiraz and some Rose. Their wines for the money are tremendous value. And the facilities are amazing, including the Muse Cafe, one of the very few hatted regional NSW restaurants. You could spend the entire day at Keith Tulloch Wines tasting, eating and just admiring the scenery. And if you are fortunate to get a few minutes with Keith, he will provide you a real wine education! I also love that it is a true family winery. When we visited, Keith was working and his wife and son were working the cellar door.

The wines I bought when there recently though will be a long time in the cellar; they are mostly ready to drink now, but I am certain all will improve a good deal given some time lying down. Fortunately my father-in-law had a vintage Keith Tulloch wine, the very first vintage of the 1998 The Kester in his cellar which he gifted to me as a Christmas present. I opened it this afternoon with great anticipation as I would any 15 year old Hunter Shiraz – and it did not disappoint! This is a beautiful Hunter Shiraz and you can while you can feel the heat of 14.4% alcohol, it is delivered with a smooth velvety mouthfeel. The fruit is powerful, and delivered with medium weight and texture. I pick up plum and boysenberry flavors, plus good spicy overtures. And the finish lasts a long, long time. As good as this wine is, I might be dipping into the 2011 The Kester and The Doctor Shiraz sooner than I thought!

We are having this wine tonight with a New York Strip steak and chips with a side salad. We tend to use a lot of spice when cooking steaks, so the 1998 Keith Tulloch The Kester Shiraz will be a great match!

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, available now!
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What dessert wine with chocolate mousse?

Posted on January 19, 2014 by Steve Shipley

Several weeks ago, we had a great dinner with two other couples. We started with salmon mousse tarts and a choice of a Hunter Valley Semillon or a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Even though we knew it was going to be a scorcher of a day, everyone wanted DAZ in the Kitchen’s famous beef stroganoff which we paired with a 2009 Bouchard Pere & Fils Pulingy-Montrachet. We wanted to have creme brulee for dessert, but did not have a torch available, so decided to go with chocolate mousse instead. (The recipe for all courses is provided in the obvious links.)

I had a number of good sticky dessert wines, including some very nice Sauternes to go with creme brulee, but was uncertain as to what dessert wine would work well with chocolate mousse. After some internal debate including considering Port or Muscat, I felt a peppery Hunter Valley Shiraz could work, so put aside a 2007 Tyrrell’s Stevens Shiraz. This is a typical high-end Hunter Valley Shiraz from a great vintage. However, through the generosity of our guests and them offering to help determine what dessert wine to drink with chocolate mousse, we had a bottle of Ivanhoe Madeira and Audrey Wilkinson Muscat to choose from. I also had a bottle of 1993 Lindeman’s Porphyry leftover from the evening before (notice the small cork bits in the bottle from the shattered 20-year-old cork). So we decided to try all three dessert wines and the main lesson learned is that sweet wine and sweet food match quite well, regardless of other characteristics involved! All three wines provided unique, but pleasurable drinking experiences while eating chocolate mousse.

The Porphyry was sweet, almost too sugary due to its age and worked better as a dessert wine with the apple tart we had the night before. Yet, it provided a viscous mouthfeel that felt good with chocolate mousse and set off well the strawberries adorning the chocolate mousse. The Madeira was sweeter yet, but sharper in taste and complimented, almost competed with the chocolate mousse. The Muscat (which was one of my original alternatives to consider as the dessert wine) probably worked the best as it less sweet, containing caramelized orange flavors to compliment the chocolate flavors of the mousse.

But the key lesson learned was that almost any dessert wine worked! Looking back, I wish I would have also pulled out a few different Ports wines as I think they could have worked as well as the Muscat or even better.

What wines have you served with chocolate mousse? Let me know if you have any good suggestions.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014. Steve Shipley. All rights reserved.
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Enjoying another fine Hunter Valley Shiraz!

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I write a lot of reviews about Hunter Valley Shiraz (and Semillons) for two reasons: (1) I drink a lot of them, and (2) they are bloody good, and therefore worth reviewing! I had pulled out a few bottles to decide between for tonight’s drinking and was going to choose between a 2007 De Iuliis Reserve Shiraz and a 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea (both excellent wines!) before spotting a single bottle of the 2001 Blueberry Hill Shiraz. Blueberry Hill is lesser known than some of the more iconic Hunter Valley wineries, but a pleasant spot with some good undulating vineyards. They make one of the better Pinot Noirs in the Hunter Valley and a nice Merlot. They also have one of the most beautiful wine labels around!

So I decided to open the 2001 Blueberry Hill Shiraz and it did not disappoint! (If you have ever had a 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea or a 2007 De Iuliis Reserve Shiraz, you will know how much of a compliment this is!) This is a very nice wine. It is slightly sweeter than other Shiraz, and with lively fruit. The spices are more savory than peppery, with a mixture of saffron and cinnamon. BTW, do not take literally the allegory to saffron and cinnamon, but I am limited in my ability to define multiple savory and sweet spices, so you are stuck with that description! The wine is very smooth, almost velvety with an elegant mouthfeel, like a fine Old World style blend, but lacks the complexities that a blend would provide. It is light and refined, with a nice alcohol level of 12.5% I find that level easier and more pleasant to drink than the Shiraz in the 14% – 15% range. This wine is twelve years old and the fruit is alive, almost tangy on my lips and has a long finish. The 2001 will not last another decade, but should be good for at least another three to five years. We will have this wine tonight with a quinoa and vegetable salad and it should work very well. A heavier Shiraz would not.

I get a lot of requests from friends who are going through the Hunter Valley as to what wineries to visit and they are always looking for a new winery or a boutique winery instead of the big players. Blueberry Hill certainly fits that bill. Check them out next time you are through the Hunter Valley.

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2013. Steve Shipley
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The give-away wine you have been waiting for!

Posted on September 15, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Last week I put up the rules to win one of two $100 bottles of wine. Today, we will take the covers off and tell you what wine it is! This wine cannot be sourced anywhere anymore as it is of premium stock and they are sold out at the cellar door. There may be one or two bottles floating around in private collections, but I believe that I hold the remaining stock of several dozen bottles. That alone makes this wine unique and somewhat special, but only if it is good wine and good wine it is! Coming from the 2005 vintage and being a Hunter Valley Shiraz, you know this wine has to potential to be excellent. Langtons’ rated this vintage an 8 out of 10 for Hunter Valley Shiraz. While not the very best year, certainly an excellent year.

The wine for the give-away is the 2005 Kelman Chairman’s Reserve Shiraz. Kelman is a cooperative vineyard in Pokolbin, at the corner of Marrowbone Road and Oakey Creek Road, just across from Saddler’s Creek in the Lower Hunter Valley. They grow their own grapes and the Shiraz vines are about 15 years old now. They have only made two vintages of the Chairman’s Reserve Shiraz, first in 2003 and then again in 2005. These two vintages reserved (hence the name!) the very best Shiraz grapes for these Reserve wines. Halliday rated the 2003 Kelman Chairman’s Reserve Shiraz as excellent and scored it 93/100. He did not rate the 2005, but I can attest that it is the better wine. I know because I have drank both the 2003 and 2005 Kelman Chairman’s Reserve Shiraz side-by-side a few years back and had a bottle of the 2005 Kelman Chairman’s Reserve Shiraz just a few days ago. This is a big wine with live, juicy fruit and plum and blackberry flavors. It is an earthy wine, with smells and texture of leather, yet beautifully balanced with moderate tannins which are well integrated. It also has a touch of oak and a very long finish. While you can tell it is a Hunter Valley Shiraz, its style is similar to a big Barossa Valley Shiraz.

After having this wine a few days ago, I wondered why I was giving such a great bottle away! But I wanted to make the give-away special and not just any good bottle you could pick up in a bottle shop or buy at auction. This is a wonderful wine, suitable for drinking today, but it will continue to improve and last into the early 2020s. If you win one of the two bottles, your most difficult choice will be to drink it right away or set it down for a while!

Remember to ‘Like’ SAZ in the Cellar on Facebook, or to ‘SUBSCRIBE TO BLOG VIA EMAIL’ for this blog to have a chance to win. We will ship a bottle for each winner anywhere in the world and that includes our cost of shipping! So easy and such a great bottle of wine which is available for you to win. If you need further explanation or want to review the rules for entering (such as being of legal age to drink wine!), you can review my previous post on the matter. Enter now and win!

Win a $100 bottle of wine give-away!

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I have been growing a social media presence, but one without significant influence or success to date. I am the first to admit I am a neophyte and I do not work as hard to increase my presence as I can. I also get a bit cranky when I realize my writing and copy-writing efforts are suppose to focus on ‘gaming’ Google by targeting my content and copy-writing for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I love writing for an audience, not Google! But people tell me that is naive, so I continue to learn and continue to work at it. I now have a social media strategy, or at least a ‘to-do’ list of things to try.

I have seen a lot of other writer’s conduct virtual blog tours and provide a give-away to help drive up traffic (and ultimately to sell more books). I am providing a guest blog tour for a writer friend in a few weeks. But by just providing a beauty package give-away, my wife, Deanna’s World, drove significant new traffic to her YouTube channel. During that time, her subscription based doubled, increasing significantly, and she had a lot of people sign up for the give-away. And fortunately, her AdSense revenue also doubled because a lot more people were viewing her videos and clicking through to related ads.

I must say that I have been impressed and have learned a lesson in how to effectively attract social media. That is why I have decided to copy her idea! I will now be doing a give-away for following my wine Facebook page (SAZ in the Cellar), and for subscribing and following my wine blog and website (also called SAZ in the Cellar). Since my upcoming book Wine Sense is still several months from being published, I will be offering a special bottle of a 2005 Reserve Hunter Valley Shiraz which is no longer available to give-away to the general public. The wine is very approachable and can be drunk immediately, or it will last into the early-mid 2020s (if you have the discipline to keep it that long!).

It is a great wine, and unique in that it is not available from any other source (unless you find someone who has a bottle or two from a while back still in their cellar). I was fortunate to buy the last several dozen of this wine a few years back. The wine is worth $100 per bottle and has been cherished when received by select business colleagues and visiting Chinese diplomats among others.

I will be giving two bottles away, wherever you may be located anywhere in the world! One will be awarded if you are the lucky draw from those of who ‘Like’ my Facebook page, SAZ in the Cellar. The other will be awarded similarly if you are the lucky draw from the group who Subscribes to follow my blog and website, SAZ in the Cellar. Feel free to join both and be in for two chances to win! I will be introducing the wine and drawing up the simple rules and conditions over the next few days, but by Liking Facebook or Subscribing to my blog now, you will be notified when the rules come out and how long we have to go before announcing the winners!

And be sure to help me out as I don’t like losing to my wife, Deanna’s World, and right now I am getting crushed!

Is a blend better than a straight varietal?

Posted on August 30, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Yes, in general and in my opinion! Let’s find out why I believe that.

I dislike the idea of fusion concepts, especially when it comes to food. Call me a traditionalist, but I find food that has stood the test of centuries, yet alone millenniums, to be among the very best food one can eat. I love Italian food and I love Indian food, but I do not favor blending the two into a single meal. Curry pastas just don’t work for me. I love Japanese and I love Tex-Mex, but I could not bring myself to even try this fusion concept in one of the hotel restaurants in Sacramento, CA when visiting a while back. The raw tuna quesadillas just did not work for me. Globalization has done a lot to change the world, but when it comes to fusion food, it has only made it worse!

But when it comes to wine blends, I am really starting to favor blends over 100% varietals. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE my 100% varietals when it comes to my favorite grapes such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Riesling. But year-in, year-out, it is impossible to get consistent sugar and alcohol levels, with each vintage being affected by that year’s heat index and rainfall causing some vintages to be different in taste than others vintages. That is when a good winemaker can use some of the characteristics of other grapes to provide a better overall taste, by adding a touch of sweetness, or subduing too much sweetness by adding a grape with more acidity or sourness. Good winemakers know how to blend a little bit of another grape or several grapes together to make good to great wines. Even Penfolds Grange over the years has had various amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon blended in to achieve its maximum potential for a particular vintage. Based on what country the wine is from and the local laws, you may still label a bottle of wine by its main varietal as long as the amount of the other grape added is still small, usually less than 15%.

But other wines, especially old world wines have been crafted to be great wines by using various blending combinations. Wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape are predominantly Grenache, but also are allowed to blend in wine from twelve other varietals. Bordeaux blends are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but contain a variety of other grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and possibly small amounts of Petit Verdot or Malbec. A classic high-quality Bordeaux blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. Australia is well-known and respected for its Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon blends such as you would find in a Penfolds Bin 389 or a Lindemans Limestone Ridge. And more and more, I am loving a wine blend called GSM of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre. And for white wine, I find the blend of Gewürztraminer and Riesling to be a very nice drink.

More and more, I am enjoying my blends and the craftmanship of the winemaker to get the blends to get the most of of the grapes. The nuances that can develop and the integration of various characteristics provide for a most enjoyable drinking experience. Maybe I am just become more old-world myself, but I find blends age better, are more complex and more balanced, and generally are a bit softer with a smoother mouth feel.

If you have not tried many blends, then I think it is about time you do! And I would appreciate your views and feedback on if you are a single-grape purist or prefer the multidimensional characteristics of a blend.

Magnificent Meal with McLeish Estate Wines

Posted on July 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

We are spending two weeks in the Hunter Valley and really enjoying it. We have taken the opportunity to cook every meal so far and have plans to cook most of our meals while here. However, we are excited to participate in two McLeish Estate wine tastings. The first one was this evening at Two Naughty Chooks Restaurant and Wine Bar at 130 John Street, Singleton, NSW and the other will be tomorrow evening at Paymasters Cafe in Newcastle. Both are hosted by McLeish Estate wines.

Brook and Wayne Dermody are the husband and wife team and co-chefs at Two Naughty Chooks Restaurant and Wine Bar. The food truly caught us by surprise – it was magnificent! And working together with Jessica McLeish of McLeish Wines, we had a perfect pairing of food and wine. We also bought some real truffles and other truffle-related products. (Tomorrow morning for breakfast we will be having scrambled eggs with truffles – yum!)

Bob and Maryanne McLeish have been working the vineyard since 1985, and all grapes are sourced from their own vineyards. They have a premium parcel of land between Broke Road and De Beyers Road and the quality of their grapes shows in the quality of their wines. Their daughter, Jessica, is part of the wine making team along with Andrew Thomas, one of Australia’s best known winemakers. The McLeish family and Andrew Thomas make a formidable team and I am certainly interested in trying more of their wines year-in and year-out.

We started the evening drinking a Sparkling Chardonnay and a Sparkling Shiraz with an assortment of great canapes. Then we sat down for a four-course degustation with perfectly matching wines. The first course was a Jerusalem artichoke soup with scallop, bacon, Hazelnuts and crispy artichoke. We drank a 2013 McLeish Estate Semillon (bottled only four weeks prior) and the 2009 McLeish Estate Semillon. Both wines went extremely well with the soup. The 2013 Semillon was fresh and very alive on the palate, with citrus and pineapple flavors, while the 2009 Semillon possessed a smoother mouth feel and was more integrated and balanced due to its maturity.

Jessica describing the Semillons

We then had the Confit chicken with mushroom and truffle. Among so many other great foods during the evening, it is impossible to pick out a standout dish, but if one had to chose, this would be it. And the matching wine was the 2009 McLeish Estate Reserve Chardonnay. This was also the stand-out wine of the evening and we are swinging by McLeish Estate in the next several days to get a dozen or so bottles. The 2009 McLeish Estate Reserve Chardonnay drank like a Montrachet. It had a mineral, wet stone taste representative of Chassagne Montrachet and lemon flavors. It also still had a good amount of acid and should cellar and improve with age over the next decade or so.

The main course was beef cheeks with celeriac, broad beans, pickled cabbage and Enoki mushrooms with a matching 2010 McLeish Estate Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. The bouquet was amazing. This wine was drinkable now, with big fruity, jammy flavors, tasting of blackberries. It was alive on the palate. This drink was surprisingly good for a Hunter Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

We also had the 2010 McLeish Estate Shiraz and the 2009 McLeish Estate Jessica Botytis Semillon with an assortment of desserts. The Shiraz was big and both fruity and spicy, typical of a Hunter Valley Shiraz. It possessed boysenberry and plum flavors.

While both red wines were very drinkable today, the Cabernet Sauvignon and the Shiraz had decent tannins and I am certain each wine will improve significantly over time. You should buy some now to sit down in the cellar for a few years! And the 2009 Jessica was luscious, with a creamy, yet refined mouth feel. It had both melon and honey flavors and was a bit sweet, but not too sweet.

The evening overall was magical with a great crowd, great chefs, food and service and of course, great wines. Jessica McLeish is typical of someone in the Australian wine industry in that she is extremely knowledgeable and passionate about her wine, yet is one of the friendliest people around and willing to share her knowledge with anyone else who is interested (like me!).

And to think we get to repeat the experience (with a different line-up of McLeish Estate wines) tomorrow again at Paymasters Cafe. Looking forward to it! Then back to cooking on our own!

The jury is in on Shiraz with pork!

Posted on June 13, 2013 by Steve Shipley

Many of you are aware of my recent experiment of having an elegant Shiraz with a pork fillet, mash, gravy and vegetables the other evening. The meal on its own was magnificent and so was the wine. The combination of the two together was adequate, but not perfect. The 15-year-old Shiraz was made in a less heavy style than many other Shiraz’ and had soften quite a bit with time. Yet, it was still too powerful and overwhelming for the pork. I love to co-mingle perfectly matched food and wine, but the Shiraz over-powered the food in this case. I needed to take several minutes of palate resting between bites of food and sips of wine to really enjoy both on their own.

So in the case of a good pork fillet in the future, it will be back to Pinot Noir for the most part. However, I was reminded by RAP (a blog viewer and commenter), that another beautifully styled wine to match up with pork is a GSM blend. GSM is common wine terminology for Grenache, Shiraz, and Mouvredre (often called Mataro also). This blend works beautifully with pork, and I have even written about this as a possibility previously. This was a superb suggestion RAP! The GSM blend is softer and more of an old world style that works well with a pork fillet. There is a lot going on in this blend and it is quite complex in terms of the primary and secondary flavors coming through. Yet, it does not overpower pork.

Another mate suggested that if a meal does not match well with the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz, well then just throw out the meal! This may be a bit extreme, but he does have something in the Vat 9 being a meal on its own!

After the meal, I did indulge in a couple of pieces of Lindt Chili Chocolate which does match perfectly with Shiraz. The chili infusion in the chocolate provides some power to match the power of a good Shiraz. So it was a very good evening of food eating and wine drinking, but in the future, it will be even better by drinking a Pinot Noir or GSM when serving pork.

1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz – will it work with pork?!

Posted on June 11, 2013 by Steve Shipley

I am experimenting this evening by opening a Shiraz to go with pork fillet, mash, vegetables and gravy. Usually I would play it safe and go with a good Pinot Noir for this meal. It is difficult to find a much better food / wine matching combination than a Pinot Noir with pork!

But I really wanted to try another bottle of the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 as it is a superb wine and at 15 years of age, I needed to check it out to make sure (that’s my excuse and I am sticking to it!) it will cellar for a while yet as I have about a ten bottles left. I don’t want to wait too long, but I do want to pace drinking this wine over the next several years or longer if I can. I would hate to wait too long and have it go off, as it is drinking very well now, but I am hoping to make it last as long as I can.

I have a great deal of respect for James Halliday and subscribe to his wine service. But he missed the mark when evaluating this wine as he gave it an 86/100 and said to drink it by 2008. This wine is still very big, yet elegant, with lively fruit, tasting of blackberry with light overtones of spice and leather. It is well integrated, and nicely balanced with strong tannins. The finish is moderate to long, and you can feel the accumulated tannins on the inside of your cheeks for a long time. This is an excellent wine, regardless of how Halliday and others scored it.

I had this wine as one of my three red wines at my 58th birthday party over two years ago. This was the first red, followed by the 2001 Yalumba Octavius Shiraz and the 1981 Penfolds Grange. All three red wines were spectacular, but the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 got the consensus vote for the best red wine of the evening. It could be that it was the sequencing and by the time we drank the 1981 Penfolds Grange, we were over-satiated. Or it could be that the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is just that good!

So why is having a Shiraz a risk with pork? It is because a Hunter Valley (and many other) Shiraz’ are heavier and spicier than most Pinot Noirs and could overwhelm the pork and side dishes. But the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 is an elegant, more refined Shiraz than many others. I know it will be fine with the pork dinner and wanted to see if it works to provide some variety from always using a Pinot Noir with pork. If not, I will go back to Pinot Noir! But if you don’t try, you will never know!

I have also had this wine with spaghetti and it worked very well. My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, makes a very fine and spicy spaghetti and the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 matched up extremely well with it. This is a versatile Shiraz! Andrew Thomas made this wine while still at Tyrrell’s and I remember talking to Andrew about it several years ago and the fond memories he had for this particular vintage.

On its own, this is a great wine (I know as I am on my second glass while writing this) and it should be fine with the meal. I will let you know in a follow-up blog post how it works with the pork. And once I finish off the last of my 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9, I will move onto the 2007 Tyrrells’ Vat 9. In fact, I will probably try my first bottle this weekend or next to see how it goes. Halliday rated the 2007 Vat 9 at 95/100 and drinkable until 2025. Campbell Mattinson rated it 96/100 and as one of the best reds released in 2010/11. This must be an amazing wine! But for now, I am drinking the 1998 and greatly enjoying it.

1999 Penfolds St Henri – wow, what a red!

Posted on May 31, 2013 by Steve Shipley

This is one of my all-time favorite red wines. I started drinking it almost a decade ago and it was great then, and is even better now. This wine has a few more years before it starts to fade, but I only have two more bottles left, so not a worry. But if you have some of it in your cellar, you should drink it soon, at least in the next three years.

I had a funny introduction to this wine the first time. I was in Dallas in 2004 on a business trip with some very senior banking executives and trying to a very large IT contract extension. There were eight of us eating at a fancy steak house as you can only find in Dallas! One of my team was a Frenchman, so the client asked him to order some fine wine. Well this particular Frenchman did not do a very good job ordering the first bottle, and I looked at the one of the key client’s face when he took a sip and could tell he was not happy with the wine. I took the wine list and while not familiar with the Penfolds St Henri of any vintage at the time, I figured a Penfolds red in this price range would be a pretty good wine without me spending several times as much for a Penfolds Magill Estate or RWT. I ordered a bottle, could tell the client thought I had made a great choice (the smile and thumbs up were evidence enough!), and subtly pushed the bottle the Frenchman ordered down to the other end of the table to be consumed. And six bottles of 1999 Penfolds St Henri later, we left the restaurant very happy!

I then introduced my wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, to this particular wine about a year later when I found it on the wine list at a restaurant in Sydney. She loved it and it continued to be a favorite choice for a few years when eating out during the mid-2000s. And upon returning from Qatar in 2009, we bought some to keep in the cellar as you could no longer find it in restaurants. This weekend is our 12th wedding anniversary, so we are celebrating by opening one of our last bottles and enjoying tonight and tomorrow night (if there is any left!).

This is not the best vintage, but still an excellent vintage. The 1996 vintage would have been slightly better and also will last another decade longer, so if you read this review and want to secure some St Henri, either buy the 1999 and drink it soon, or buy some of the 1996 or 1998 which you can drink now and lay some down for later.

The1999 Penfolds St Henri is a lively, fruity wine with blackberry, boysenberry and tart plum flavors. It also has a lot of spice and goes extremely well with chili infused dark chocolate. I know that from previous wine / chocolate matching events, but more importantly I know that as my mouth is currently filled with this wine after eating a square of the Lindt Chili dark chocolate! Wow – what a combination!

The wine also has big tannins and is moderately heavy on the palate. It is 14% alcohol, but certainly not over the top. It is a complex wine with a lot of nuance. It has the mouth feel and slight odor of wet leather. The finish lasts a long, long time.

We will be making a rice with seared beef dish tonight to have with the wine, but frankly, we will probably finish off the bottle before dinner. We are two-thirds the way through it already. It just goes down so easily!

James Halliday has mentioned that compared to the Penfolds Grange, that the St Henri is certainly under-valued given what a great wine it is. This is a perfect example of wine economics. I would always take eight or nine bottles of the current vintage St Henri over one Penfolds Grange and that is the current exchange rate between the two wines. Frankly, it’s a no-brainer to go with many bottles of St Henri over Grange.

I will finish this post the same way I started it: wow, what a red!

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