Simply an astonishing wine, perhaps the best red wine that Steve Pannell has been associated with in his time at BRL Hardy. It’s deeply scented with alluring and exotic spicy and minty aromas, with an enormous depth of pure, deep, dark cassis and mulberry shiraz fruit. Oak treatment is obvious yet not overt, while the wine easily carries its surprisingly high 14.5% alcohol by volume. It’s fine, taut and supple, clearly focused around a deep core of bright fruit and married with superbly tight tannins. The decade of the 1990s has seen BRL Hardy’s premier red rise from being a reliable, honest large company red to a wine fully deserving of mention alongside the classic contemporary Australian shirazes such as Clonakilla, Dalwhinnie and Best’s. I have a very soft spot for the stylish and reserved 1994 wine, the flagrantly overt 1995 vintage and concede that while it isn’t my favourite example of the wine, that the 1997 release is one of the better from this difficult South Australian season. That said, the 1998 release (19.3, drink 2010-2018, $89 retail, approx.) leaves them all in its wake, even the stunning 1970 release, the first shiraz to wear the Eileen Hardy tag. It’s made from 76% old vine McLaren Vale fruit, 12% Padthaway and 10% Clare Valley material. Open fermented at Tintara and basket pressed, it was matured in French barriques (60% new) for 20 months. This bottling of Eileen Hardy Shiraz is also the world’s first wine to use DNA coding in a security seal to reinforce its authenticity. DNA has been removed from a vine grown at Hardy’s McLaren Vale vineyards and impregnated into the label’s printing ink. The wine also sports a tamper-proof self-adhesive neck label prevents the easy replacement of capsule and cork, with special light-reflective printing inks that can be read by an electronic hand-held scanner.
