How often do professional wine writers smell something and think to themselves “Oh dear God, it’s yet another Barossa shiraz with some age to it” and quietly frown, wondering how they’re going to say something exciting and original about yet another wine of hundreds that are superficially the same? Fairly often, I’d guess.
This is yet another Barossa shiraz with some age to it: an initial burst of jammy fruit tempered by marked bottle age notes at the finish of a good sniff. It’s fresh black cherries with cola nut and just a hint of horehound.
The initial attack of rich, sweet Barossa fruit is quickly swept aside in favor of a somewhat tannic, then revoltingly medicinal (honest: this tastes like American cough syrup does, and I’m not a fan) note that disappears quietly into an unremarkable finish. With aeration and patience, this does prove itself to be a well made wine but ugh: that flavor is so strongly reminiscent of childhood medications I took to relieve the itch associated with chicken pox that I really do need to go find something else to drink.
Recommended only if you didn’t grow up in the USA.
Yalumba
Price: $30
Closure: Cork
My question is – what’s a horehound and is that an attractive smell?
Wikipedia has a tediously long article on horehound here, but that isn’t particularly helpful.
In an Californian cultural context, horehound is (I believe) only ever found in candy shops located near tourist attractions that are attempting to convey a sense of the pioneers that settled the West. It’s a strange, medicinal, not particularly appealing candy that is allegedly delicious but reminds me of something best left unsmelled.
The smell could quite possibly be attractive in other cultural contexts, but not in mine. Towards the end of the bottle, it subsided somewhat, so I’m somewhat relieved that the four remaining bottles of this wine might go somewhere interesting in another five or ten years.