Arila Gardens Quartz and Ironstone Gardens Shiraz 2020
- 97
- $85
- Drink by: 2024 - 2040
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My immediate thought with this Shiraz was that if these guys are making wines this good from 2020, I can’t wait to see their 2021s. Again from the Moppa subregion, the vines planted back in 1940, this is a joy.
Opaque/black/purple in colour (if that is a colour), this is plush and layered. Richly flavoured, complex and gorgeously textured. This could only be first class Barossa Shiraz. Notes of cassis, soy, licorice, black fruits and chocolate. The palate may be dense but it dances. There is balance and length here, serious length. Wonderful stuff. If you can keep your hands off it, the wine has twenty years ahead of it. When I went back to look at past thoughts on previous vintages, I found I had given these wines exactly the same scores for their 2019s, so they are nothing if not consistent.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
