Brokenwood Graveyard Shiraz 2018
- 99
- $350
- Drink by: 2028 - 2045
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A wine festooned with accolades. For me, the question is can it, or perhaps will it, match the 1986 Graveyard? Only time will reveal that, but to even consider a wine in the ballpark of that legend (for me, perhaps the greatest Hunter red since the Lindeman’s twins of 1965) gives you some idea of where this sits. Monumental. A wine for bended knee. This is the vinous equivalent of Steve Smith holding firm to win the Ashes in England; of Springsteen and the E Street Band at their best; of Sir Anthony Hopkins doing ‘Kear Lear’. Pick your own example. The only bad news? You will have the devil of a time finding a bottle. Winelovers are not stupid and even at $350 a bottle (peanuts when compared to the great First Growths and Grand Cru Burgundies, with which it sits comfortably), they were not going to leave this sitting around for long.
Young, obviously. Ripe and plush, with that vintage’s trademark finesse and tannin management. Chocolate, dark berries, warm earth, and more – the flavours just keep coming. Complex, balanced, good grip. It needs at least a decade but is so gorgeous now, how does one resist? Focused, with great length and the intensity maintained throughout, beautiful tannins, knife-edge balance. A stunning wine. One of the great Graveyards and to be honest, I’m not sure that they can make a better wine.
Points? 99, but I feel really cheap not going the next step. At the moment, that is reserved for the 1986. Every chance it will have company before long.
There is one downside. Sitting here, writing this, I realise that there will be no wine with dinner tonight. I’ll stick to a gin. I don’t have any Graveyard 18, having tasted this recently when in the Hunter and I am only doing the review now, so I know that anything else I open will fall dismally short. This wine is unfair on the competition.
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.
