Curtis Family Pasha McLaren Vale Shiraz 2022
- 96
- $100
- Drink by: 2026-2041
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Impressively packaged, this Shiraz, from an excellent vintage, is from 60-year-old vines. After destemming, there was a cold soak for a week before a slow fermentation over fourteen days. Maturation was for two years in French and American oak barrels, a percentage of them new. Deep maroon with a magenta rim, if you like some quality vanilla oak in your reds, this one is for you. Well integrated but certainly still evident, the oak is joined by notes of chocolate, plums, mulberries, florals and smoked meats. A wine of excellent length, there is a juiciness thanks to the acidity, which really provides impressive energy. The wine is balanced, focused and finishes with sleek tannins. It should provide pleasure for the next ten to fifteen years. If you don’t like oak, then the score needs to be dropped a few points.
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.
