Description
The Shirvingtons planted their first vineyard in 1996 in McLaren Vale South Australia and currently have 26 hectares under vine. Production is totally red wine grapes – Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mataro and Grenache.
Shirvington grows grapes that produce super-premium, honest wines with full fruit flavour, and to build a strong and thriving Australian brand that is respected as a leader in quality, consistency and value. They will will continue to produce wines that are testimony to McLaren Vale’s great reputation.
The Shirvington Shiraz 2009, Mclaren Vale, aged 17 months in 60 percent new oak barrels, 40 percent once-used. There’s an irresistible sense here that every aspect of the wine is both carefully calibrated yet generous and expansive. The color is dark ruby-purple; aromas of black currants, blackberries and blueberries are warm, meaty and fleshy, permeated by notes of cloves and white pepper, leather, violets and bitter chocolate, while the appealing ripeness is balanced, and the complexity is deepened, by a strain of cool graphite minerality. The Shirvington Shiraz 2009 is sleek, lithe, a little muscular and supple in its black pantherish manner, not ponderous or blatant in any way, and certainly not opulent; it’s as elegant as shiraz gets while retaining latent dynamism. Tannins are dense yet polished, packed with woodsy underbrushy elements, acidity is tense and arrow-straight, and the whole package is imbued with a powerful granitic mineral character. This is, in short, an example of great wine-making.
Score: 94 Points – The Wine Advocate
