Steve Messiter has now been the viticulturist and vintner at Girraween Estate for 10 years, how time flies! We can now enjoy the fruitful outcomes of what Steve has learned growing grapes and making wine on The Granite Belt for a decade.
A back cherry colour in the depths of the glass and red cherries at the edges. The bouquet is rich with black fruits, spices, some mocha oak and a little earthiness. The wine has a long and quite luscious palate, it greets you with a genuine enthusiasm and introduces you to its secrets with an unabashed openness. The initial reveal is all about black berries, black cherries and black plums mixed with a little creamy oak and red cherries are in there waiting for you to detect them. Then you find yourself embracing chocolate, more milk than dark, and the wine then unleashes some beautiful spice flavours – a mix of black pepper and cardamon, those late spices are a delight, once you encounter them you go looking for them in the next sip much earlier on the palate. The fruit weight is excellent, the tannins are quite silky and the acid is just the right expression of fresh. The wine is beautifully balanced and perhaps the best shiraz Steve has made to date. Steve usually exercises a gentle hand with his red wines and this one has a little more weight from the excellent 2018 vintage but, true to Steve’s style this is the most delicately elegant 2018 Granite Belt shiraz I have tried from the 2018 vintage so far.
Tasted: Thursday 21st May, 2020 without food and then with over several hours.
Alcohol: 14%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $28
Suggested Drinking Window: now to 2030
Winemaker: Steve Messiter
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