Wolf Blass Makers’ Project Shiraz Grenache 2019
- 91
- $15
- Drink by: 2020 - 2023
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Big company winemakers are always experimenting with their craft, but rarely do drinkers get to see the results. With the new Wolf Blass Makers’ Project wines, consumers are up front and centre in tasting and appraising their work. Presumably, if one or all of the projects receive the tick of approval, the wines will become permanent features.
Each wine label reveals the project’s aim. With the 2019 Shiraz Grenache the maker is chasing a “smooth finish.” The choice of winemaking method – to press the grape skins early before the end of fermentation.
Did it succeed?
Ripe fruit (14%) helps here with style and texture. Sourcing the grapes would have played a role but interestingly, there is no region noted.
Combining shiraz and grenache works well, too, with the former bringing solid fruit weight to the wine, and the latter some gorgeous, lifted aromatics. There is generosity here in the lashings of black, blue berries, high spice and pepper with a touch of earthy savouriness. To answer the burning question, yes, the maker does indeed complete a smooth finish. Job well done.
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.
