Auswan Creek Big Tiger Barossa Valley Shiraz 2018
- 95
- Drink by: 2022-2032
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Impossible to miss this amazingly striking label. One suspects that this may have been intended for a different market, but politics intervened. No matter. Their loss, our gain. Your gain, if you move quickly and secure some. Crafted by well-known winemaker, Ben Riggs, this wine spent two years in oak. An intense magenta hue, there is an immediate plushness to this wine. The overriding impression is of a soft, almost cuddly style with oodles of chocolate and clove notes. We have cassis, kid leather, vanillin touches, coffee beans and well-integrated oak. Seamless in structure, we have very fine, ever-so-silky tannins. There is both length and intensity, which is carried for the full journey. This wine has a decade ahead of it. Finishes with notes of black cherries, mocha and cloves.
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.
