d’Arenberg The Footbolt Shiraz 2019
- 93
- $22
- Drink by: 2022-2032
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This wine offers compelling evidence as to why I would not want to be a small boutique winemaker. Unless you are able to price your wines in the upper echelon, how on earth do you compete with a wine like this? You just can’t. On the basis of value for money, unbeatable. The name comes from the decision made by Joseph Osborn, Chester’s ancestor, to sell his favourite racehorse in 1912 to buy the d’Arenberg property. The horse was named Footbolt.
100% McLaren Vale Shiraz, the grapes were gently crushed into five-tonne open fermenters. Batches remain separate until the final blending. Foot treading occurs midway through fermentation. Then basket-pressing and into French barriques, both new and older, where fermentation is completed. No racking until the final blending and no fining or filtration at all. The wine then spends a year to 18 months in oak, maturing.
A vibrant purple in colour, this is plush, soft and ripe. Full of flavour, it is ideal for early drinking, utterly delicious and, as mentioned, great value. There are notes of chocolate, leather, dry herbs, mulberries, raspberries and aniseed. The texture is supple, the wine seamless with excellent length. Concentrated, balanced and youthful. Sure, delicious now, but it has a decade ahead if you want. A cracker.
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.
