Wine snobs have perhaps greeted the arrival of the Shane Warne Collection with the typically sceptical reaction that Australians reserve for their highest achievers. I’ve tasted the wines and have spoken to the leg spinner in question about them and I’m pleasantly impressed by what I’ve seen, heard and tasted. For starters, if Warne had simply wanted to cash in on his name, there’s hardly a medium-sized or large wine company in Australia who would have knocked him back. Instead, Warne has gone into partnership with the Forbes family, old friends of his family, who own and operate the little-known Zilzie Estate winery in northwest Victoria. Secondly, the wines stack up. If anything, they over-deliver at $15 per bottle, and it’s going to be a challenge for Zilzie to maintain their opening standard. There’s an appealingly restrained and refreshing Chardonnay 2002 (16.2, drink 2003-2004) whose bright flavours of stonefruits, apples and cashew are partnered by lightly toasty butter/vanilla oak and wrapped in acids of genuine freshness and zest. The silky-smooth Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot 2002 (16.3, drink 2003-2004+) is just as easy to drink. Earthy, lightly herbal aromas of fresh cassis and dark plums, with lightly smoky chocolate and sweet oak precede a creamy, polished palate of red and black cherries, plums and blackberries with absolutely nothing sticking out of place. Giving credit only where it’s due, these are two of the best wines in Australia around $15 a bottle.
