Premium Mount Barker vineyard Plantagenet has released an exceptional Shiraz from the 1998 vintage, providing yet another example of why this will surely go down in the records as one of the best years ever for Australian red wine. Made from 30 year-old vines, the style is anything but the typical Australian shiraz. No over-ripe jammy fruit, no spirity alcohol, no over-the-top American oak. It’s a stylish and very expressive package of intense, peppery fruit, dark briary red cherry and black plum flavours, and integrated creamy French oak. Its texture is fleshy and tight-knit, its finish is long and savoury, its spicy flavour, with licorice and cinnamon highlights, remarkably persistent. Significantly, given that Plantagenet is now rated amongst the best of Australia’s ‘cool-ish’ makers of shiraz, the wine demands an accessible retail price of $35 per bottle. That’s very competitive at a time when many are leaving $45 well behind. For further information about this and other new releases, simply subscribe to Jeremy Oliver’s OnWine Report, using the button to the left of this screen.
