Pertaringa Over The Top Shiraz 2019
- 94
- $40
- Drink by: 2022-2034
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With this wine, ‘Over the Top’ refers to the team making the best wine they can. I suspect that they do that with every wine they make, but not all wines are equal and here the fruit is sourced from the best vineyards they have available. It spends twenty months in French oak, 30% new. Crimson maroon in colour, here we have more earthy notes, leather, black olives, cloves, dry herbs and aniseed. It is slightly more rustic than some at this early stage and we are seeing some complexity building. If it seemed a bit each way with the nose, the palate stepped right up. Ripe, balanced, concentrated and very long, it shows more cassis and chocolate. Just lovely with silky tannins and it certainly has an easy ten or twelve years ahead.
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.
