Our Best Shiraz Wine

While we can’t control the weather, great wines are no accident.

In producing the best Shiraz – as for any quality wine – the conditions must be right. This means good soils, good water, the right cultivars, good management, correct growing procedures, attention to detail, and of course good wine-makers.

Glendalough Estate’s red wine-maker, Kevin Mitchell, has won several awards, including the 2004 and 2005 International Wine & Spirit Competition gold star for the best Shiraz.

So the best Shiraz from Glendalough Estate is a wine to be reckoned with.

Judging a quality wine is a mystery to many and an art to those who are versed. The wine must have a balance so that no single taste or characteristic overwhelms the others. It should have depth and complexity, and it should taste like its type and not like anything else.

When we taste a wine, we should imagine the grapes growing in the vineyards – so the wine should taste like fruit but we should also have a sense that the wine-maker had a vision of what the end product would taste like.

A truly delicious wine makes us sit up and take notice, and we will know, deep down, that it tastes both familiar and different.

Totally estate and dry grown, on terra rosa soils, our 2005 Shiraz displays characteristics that are expected by the consumer.

Flavours of spice, chocolate, plums and pepper, blended with new and old French and American oak characterise this wine. Cellaring will further enhance these flavours.

One final point to remember is that while many delicious wines are expensive, this doesn’t mean that all expensive wines are delicious and vice versa.