Curtis Gladiator 2021
- 95
- $228
- Drink by: 2025-2040
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The fruit comes from 80 year old vines, hand harvested and fermented over 28 days with wild yeasts. Matured in French and American oak for 36 months. There is plenty of density here for your dollars, with aromas of black cherry, rhubarb and dark plums. A grungey red gum bark that leads to more earthy things, some potting soil and black charcoal dust. The wine is decidedly dry on the palate with more of that immoveable black rock, some coffee grids and poppy seed. This feels born in the earth, those old vines telling a tale of decades buried deep underground. Tannins are gritty and placed in order for this wine to mature gracefully over 10-15 years further. This isn’t full of muscle and grit as a Gladiator might invoke, it is more a story of a vine that has endured and stands tall of its own merit and ability. A power move in your cellar but if its on the table, do it justice with a bone in shoulder roast.
Shanteh cut her teeth at Sydney’s Award-Winning Quay restaurant where she worked for over a decade and was Head Sommelier from 2018 till 2022. She has been nominated for the Good Food Guide Sommelier of the Year award on three occasions and claims that her experience as a Len Evans scholar as one of the highlights of her career. Shanteh hosts her own weekly podcast ‘Over A Glass’ with the Deep in the Weeds Network and spends her time writing for various publications and judging at numerous wine shows across the country.
