Gundog Estate The Lived Experience Hunter Valley Shiraz 2019

While many of us talk about improving our society, others are out there working towards it. Matt Burton at Gundog Estate is one of the doers.

In 2018, he started working with Path 2 Change, creating a number of fundraising projects to help build a better future for the homeless and disadvantaged youth in the Hunter Valley. The following year, he began a work experience program at his cellar door. Then COVID-19 struck. Unable to fundraise or assist with work experience, Matt went back to the drawing board, creating a wine – The Lived Experience – to raise important funds. With every bottle sold, 100% of profits goes to supporting Path 2 Change. “Every bottle comes with the possibility of changing a young person’s life and we hope that makes every drop extra special, writes Matt in his thank you note to buyers. It almost seems superfluous to add that Matt Burton is a talented winemaker with an eye for detail and is to be trusted when he sets about making a wine, whether or not it is for charity is beside the point. However, I suspect a wine for charity may attract a more heightened and passionate response from the young man.

Hunter shiraz is his baby. He knows it well. Here, he promotes the grape’s arresting, seductive fruit charm to do its magic. It does the job particularly well. Black cherry, spiced plum, pepper, potpourri, violet aromas, lifted and fresh. What is there on the bouquet is amplified once it hits the tongue, the spice, the black fruits, pepper satiny to the touch. Tannins meld into the whole, oak provides a support vehicle for the classy fruit as it moves seamlessly to the finish.

It’s a lovely, medium-bodied, elegant shiraz, a feel-good kind of wine in every sense of the word. Go out and buy a bottle, you will be doing yourself a favour.

Pick up your case here.