2008 Best's Bin 1 Shiraz

I tasted this almost a month ago (April 23), during the week the Melbourne Storm were stripped of their 2007 and 2009 NRL premierships. By opening a Victorian wine, I thought I would show some solidarity to the innocent Melbourne fans, but couldn’t resist ‘draping’ the bottle in the colours of my team, the Parramatta Eels (who Melbourne defeated in the 2009 Grand Final) in the photo. For the 98% of people who a) don’t know what I am talking about, or b) hate, despise, or are ambivalent towards Rugby League/Sport, I will digress.

The 2008 Best’s Bin 1 Shiraz is an approachable wine with black fruits (dark plum and sour dark cherry), a small shake of spice, minimal (overt) new oak and soft tannins. Of note, there was a deal of sour cherry and acidity on the palate, though it was a positive for me. As an aside, it reminded me of a nice Pinot Noir I had from Henty, which had a similar pleasurable cherry/acid duelling banjos thing going on, but don’t mind me.

Summary - another solid wine from a dependable winery steeped in history.

RRP: $25
ABV: 14.5%
Website: http://www.bestswines.com/