Claymore You’ll Never Walk Alone GSM 2024
- 93
- $25
- Drink by: 2026-2032
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One always has to respect people who follow their passion, even when it goes through lows as well as highs. This wine is released annually as a tribute to the family’s love of the Liverpool football team. I’m sure they will appreciate the irony that it arrived for tasting the day after the Glorious Gunners finally lifted the EPL trophy, after far too long. Even I felt it would be poor form to celebrate with this wine (after tasting, of course), even though it is, as always, delicious drinking and cracking value. The blend this year is 44% Grenache, 43% Shiraz and 13% Mataro, all from the Clare Valley. This year, the bottle is lightweight glass. Crimson/garnet in colour, still very youthful, but delightfully spicy. The nose offers bright notes of plums and mulberries, chocolate and florals. This is a fresh and easy drinking style with a sleek texture, abundant but satiny tannins and juicy acidity. Very good length, it is a pleasure to drink and should remain so over the next four to six years, during which time it seems unlikely that Liverpool will be lifting any trophies.
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.
