Hare’s Chase Lepus Shiraz 2020
- 95
- $178
- Drink by: 2024-2039
Share
This is the prestige Shiraz from the team’s top vineyards in the Barossa. Under cork and with the heavy bottle – who knows how long that will persist as the trend is very much towards lighter examples. This is a very dark maroon hue and still coming together, but this has endless promise. The nose reveals notes of black fruits, warm earth, truffles, chocolate, soy and aniseed. The wine is rich and intense, seamless with silky tannins making for a quintessential Barossa Shiraz. A fine line of acidity runs the length of the journey, while those chocolate notes just persist and persist. Enjoy it over the next eight to fifteen years. As with past vintages, all signs point to blockbuster territory but the wine deceives, maintaining a degree of elegance. If the score is not quite at the lofty levels of past releases, it merely reflects that this is a vintage which requires a little more snoozing in the cellar. With time, it should climb.
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.
