Grant Burge Filsell Shiraz 2023
- 95
- $65
- Drink by: 2025-2045
Share
The famous Filsell Shiraz from their Barossa Valley vineyard with vines planted over a century ago, is still cracking value and always a delicious drink. There is a richness and generosity immediately apparent with this wine, which shows impeccable extraction. The colour is inky dark in the centre with a dark purple rim. We have notes of plums, black fruits, soy, mulberries, coffee grinds, cassis and chocolate, though some red fruits, raspberries and cherries, drift in and out. A supple texture here and juicy acidity, this is finely crafted with the oak deftly handled, giving the wine a flick of a vanillin note. Firm tannins sit comfortably towards the end of a very long finish. This will easily handle a decade, even two, in the cellar, and likely continue to improve over that time.
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.
