Grant and Sonya Casley hold back a lot of vintages for later sale. A good thing to for people who generally don’t cellar wines and want to know what aged Granite Belt wines taste like and for others to gain some indication of Granite Belt wine cellaring potential. The primary fruit has disappeared but the fruit hasn’t disappeared.
If you look at photos 3, 4 and 5 on instagram you’ll notice the bricking at the edges and the aged fruit colours as your gaze moves into the depths of the wine. There is still some colour vibrancy there but overall the colour has generally dulled. You can detect aged oak characters on the nose and still some redolent lifted berry fruits however the overall effect is of an intermingling of fruit and oak without one dominating the other, a good result for a 14 year old shiraz. The tertiary bouquet features some tobacco/cigar box, chocolate and a little woody spice hiding under some blackberry jam that wasn’t opened only yesterday.
A palate that offers up an experience of compote fruit, liquorice and underlying oak with touches of unsweet vanilla, a kind of cinnamon woody spice and faded white pepper. The mouthfeel is quite smooth and slinky with very resolved tannins that do however manage some late drying and combined with a little acid lift. An enjoyable wine to be experienced now. It needs a decant as there is an accumulation of sediment and it needs a long breathe. Later in the night this wine really opened up a lot and displayed more fruit and some sweet vanillin oak – shows how things can change in aged wines as they breathe. Following Veuve Clicquot we had opened a 2018 La Petite Mort Shiraz/Viognier and a 2012 Samuels Gorge Shiraz but this 2006 from Casley Mt Hutton was easily the crowd favourite on the night. Just remember it does need a very long breathe and then it’s prepared to say an almost rambunctious hello … beautiful wine!
Tasted: Saturday 5th September, 2020 without food and then with over several hours.
Alcohol: 14.5%
Closure: Diam
Price: $76 – purchased in January 2020.
Suggested Drinking Window: now – will still cellar under good conditions for around 5 years.
Winemaker: Grant Casley
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