Head The Brunette Shiraz 2023
- 96
- $70
- Drink by: 2025-2045
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For grapes to make the cut for this wine, they must come from vineyards which outperform every year and which “represent the ‘dark-side’ of Shiraz in the Barossa”. The main component comes from the Flaxman Valley which is, somewhat paradoxically for a valley, one of the higher sites in the region, planted in 1965. The colour is garnet/magenta, fading to red on the rim. The nose offers notes of leather, cassis, dark cherries, blackcurrants, ripe raspberries and a hint of bacon fat. There are delicatessen meats and herbs, with a touch of warm earth. A seamless wine which lifts on the palate, it offers laser-like focus, silky tannins and great length. Intensity throughout, but a wine which has muscle and yet exhibits such immaculate balance. Fifteen to twenty years aging potential here. A stunning Barossa Shiraz.
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.
