Birthday Wishes

So on Friday we had a few people over to celebrate my wife's birthday. If I said how old she was she'd probably freak on me. She's 26 by the way. Come on, it's not like she ever reads my blog. So as she marches on towards 30, she wished for me to open a bottle of wine she picked out a few years ago.

While at Thames River Wine and Spirits a few years back we saw two bottles of Two Hands Shiraz. They were the 2004 Bella's Garden Barossa Valley and the 2004 Lily's Garden McClaren Vale. At the time I had heard rumblings about these fantastic wines, but had yet to see any reviews, so I was of no assistance in helping Katie choose which one she'd like. For some reason or another she settled on Lily's Garden. Of course the following month Wine Spectator gave an outstanding review to Bella's Garden and proclaimed it one of the top Australian shiraz'. But we love our Lily just fine. So Friday I opened it up for her as the night was waning down and passed Katie a glass, as well as sharing it with a few other people who would appreciate it.

The wine would have surely tasted terrific young, but now with four years on it , it had developed an interesting character. At first, the nose was an overpowering fruitiness. I'm talking red fruit like raspberries, not the dark stuff like currant or blackberry. And initially it was powerful on the tongue with the same fruit qualities, but as the wine breathed and rounded into form, it became dry and bitter. And as myself and Chad discussed this, I decided it wasn't a negative bitterness, but rather an enjoyable quality. To me the finish of this Shiraz was quite like a Cabernet. The bitterness reminded me slightly of pine needles.

This was our first serious attempt at aging a shiraz instead of drinking it right after purchase. I think it was successful, but it might have been interesting to open it up the year before and see if it would've been even a better balance of fruit with the age. I guess some things we'll just never know. We'll be back later this week with an overdue review of Dev's on Bank. We're also adding a new feature this week, I'll talk on a random movie quote from one my faves. You tell me the movie and the speaker and I'll make sure you get a chance at tasting something special from our cellar in the not so distant future. So, till next time..." Turbulence. Solar radiation heats the Earth's crust, warm air rises, cold air descends - turbulence. I, I don't like that."--???