Gralyn Estate Reserve Shiraz 2017
- 95
- $120
- Drink by: 2021 - 2030
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In the ongoing celebration of Margaret River cabernet sauvignon as the region’s premier red grape, let’s not forget the region’s other red grape. The Mediterranean climate that shines on cabernet, doesn’t do a bad job on shiraz either. It’s just we don’t see the latter on shelves as much as we do the former.
A late 2017 harvest in the region – at times un-seasonally cool – resulted in a tightly coiled, focussed shiraz from Gralyn Estate.
Give the wine a splash of air after opening, and watch it unfold. It reveals good regional and varietal expression with black and red berried fruits, dried herb and turned earth. Instead of typical Marg’s bay leaf minty-ness, there’s a fresh spearmint quality.
The gentle flow of fruit, spice and toasty oak plays across the palate. It’s a youthful four-year-old, still unevolved to a degree, built around sinewy, dry tannins. It is a wine that will benefit further from ageing. It’s built into its DNA.
Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
