WINE OF THE WEEK:
Australia's Rutherglen Estates produces competitive and tasty wine
Rutherglen Estates is a young winery operation, having commenced in 1996 with the aim of exporting its entire production to the United Kingdom for sale in higher-end retail stores.
As the wines started coming out of this winery, it became apparent that they were of great quality, and when favorable reviews and gold medals started pouring in, demand grew here in America.
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John Larchet from The Australian Premium Wine Collection has yet another success in the making with this tasty import. It is clearly a no-nonsense approach to winemaking, which has given rise to the delicious range of wonderful wines from Rutherglen.
Priced in the competitive and highly psychological less-than-$10 range, this is a great value that is highly recommended.
In the glass, this Rutherglen wine is a deep opaque purple-red color with a saturated core of ink-red going out into a deep purple rim definition with ultrahigh painted viscosity.
On the nose, sexy black and red fruits are just jumping out and attacking your olfactory sensors. There is soft vanilla notes, crushed blueberries, juicy raspberries, blackberry sorbet, cherries jubilee, sweet black currants, licorice, crème caramel, oak references, spice components and phenols.
In the mouth, this wine is quite simply delicious with ripe crushed black cherries, blackberry liqueur, molten black licorice, aniseed infused tea, spicy notes of currants, minerals and hints of American oak. The midpalate is tremendous in its softness and subtle tannin structure, and all of this just makes for excellent drinking potential. It is a great little wine with so much to offer any lover of big, full-bodied juicy red wines. It is handily employing the fashionable screw cap closure, so it should drink well for another three to four years easily.
Try it with filet mignon and béarnaise sauce.
Wine: Rutherglen Estates The Red
Grape: Shiraz (85 percent), petite sirah (15 percent)
Region: Victoria, Australia
Vintage: 2004
Price: $9.99
Gil Lempert-Schwarz's wine column appears Wednesdays. Write him at P.O. Box 50749, Henderson, NV 89016-0749, or e-mail him at gil@winevegas.com.
