The Laughing Magpie impressive choice for holiday

In addition to being famous for its wines, d'Arenberg is known for coming up with quirky names for them. Names such as The Money Spider, The Dead Arm, Ironstone Pressings and The Hermit Crab are all highly rated and interesting wines from this excellent Australian producer.

The Laughing Magpie is the name of the tame kookaburra that lives near the home of the Osborn family, which produces d'Arenberg wine.

It is a blend and style that has its roots in the French Côte Rôtie, where white viognier is grown alongside red shiraz, then picked and vinified together to create a highly perfumed red wine. This is a superb choice for your best holiday dinners and it is highly recommended.

In the glass, The Laughing Magpie is a vivid blackish red-purple color with a deep fuchsia and pink rim definition and long, thick, viscous "legs" coloring the sides of the bowl.

The viognier adds fragrance with the perfume of flowers, nectarines, ginger and herbs, enhancing the ripe spectrum of the shiraz, namely crushed blackberry, blueberry and boysenberry fruit. There is a lot of young oak as well, and notes of smoky creme brulee.

On the palate, the wine is almost unapproachable for the first hour, but if decanted or otherwise allowed to open up, it reveals ripe concentrated and extracted black fruits with wild black cherry, licorice, aniseed, spicy ripe blueberry soup and firm massive tannins, that will come around as the wine ages. The powerful finish lingers for a full minute on the palate and adds serious credence to this well-crafted wine.

It is still young, but it is probably one of the greatest wines in the d'Arenberg portfolio, so it is worth placing in the cellar for some years to come. The Laughing Magpie should work with many types of food on the basis of its intense concentration, but especially with hearty stews, rich pasta dishes, and roasted and grilled meats.

Wine: d'Arenberg The Laughing Magpie

Grape: Shiraz (94 percent), viognier (6 percent)

Region: McLaren Vale, South Australia

Vintage: 2005

Price: $24.99

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.