A tasty Canberra Celt
Not the right vintage, but to give you an idea of the Celtic nature of the labelling here
Back when the world was wearing short trousers and its mother was wiping smuts from its rosy cheeks with a portion of spittle-soaked hankie, back when Bowes Wine was taking its first wobbly steps, giraffe calf-like, we offered an Australian wine from, of all places, the Canberra Hills.
And I recently found a few bottles lurking unexpectedly in a shadowy alcove of my wine collection. Beyond drinking dates it was; expectations I had not. And yet...and yet.
Nose fully mature, startling with a sweet note of strawberry, veneered over with aromas of smoke and spice and the singed edges of cakes, all a touch exotic. Piquant the mouth and a granular minerality; a remnant tickle of upright tannin; a sweetness that is suggested by sweet pipe tobacco, but a dry wine of raspberry crispness.
It was the 2001 Canberra Hills Shiraz from Clonakilla, now more explicitly labelled Shiraz Viognier, for so it is, a blend of red and white wines aping the Côte Rôties so beloved of John Kirk, founder of the estate.
And I recently found a few bottles lurking unexpectedly in a shadowy alcove of my wine collection. Beyond drinking dates it was; expectations I had not. And yet...and yet.
Nose fully mature, startling with a sweet note of strawberry, veneered over with aromas of smoke and spice and the singed edges of cakes, all a touch exotic. Piquant the mouth and a granular minerality; a remnant tickle of upright tannin; a sweetness that is suggested by sweet pipe tobacco, but a dry wine of raspberry crispness.
It was the 2001 Canberra Hills Shiraz from Clonakilla, now more explicitly labelled Shiraz Viognier, for so it is, a blend of red and white wines aping the Côte Rôties so beloved of John Kirk, founder of the estate.
