With its fine-grained and minty Centenary Hill Shiraz 1994, Orlando has well and truly joined the Australian equivalent of the space race, the premium Barossa shiraz club. This smart new offering is a spicy, smooth red whose sweet core of ripe redcurrants and cassis has been deftly married with creamy and chocolate oak. Sourced from a mature single Barossa vineyard, this silky wine was regularly pumped over during fermentation and its entire pressings component was returned to the wine, after which it received 14 months in small American oak. I rate the wine at 18.9 and suggest it be cellared until 2002-2006. It retails for around $50.
