Grant Burge Meshach 2014

Meshach looms large in the glass. It’s the Barossa Valley Shiraz’s signature as its creator, Grant Burge, intended. From vines 60+ years old, it holds court both colour-wise – deep, dark with twinkling red hues – and with a powerful presence that belies its age. Big perfume of cigar box, chocolate, spice, plum pudding, black fruits, earth and leather. It’s generous and complex and, yes, carries the bold, warm-hearted Barossa shiraz stamp. It’s packed with flavour that lingers long. Meshach lives up to many drinkers’ expectations of what a traditional Barossa Shiraz should be, and that includes an ability to age. Firm tannins are the not so quiet force behind this wine with the clear intention of providing the framework for that extended ageing. It’s still but a pup and you can’t say that about too many nine-year-old Australian Shiraz.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

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.

Wine writer and critic