@$169 The Empty Bottle Club 2010 wine offer

2008 Inkwell Shiraz

This is a serious single vineyard Shiraz!

The beauty of single vineyard wines are that they're totally unique -  no one has the exact same patch of dirt as their neighbour.  My friend Andrew reckons the Inkwell Shiraz is like smelling a fermenter of freshly crushed grape berries.

I like the flavour, but it's the velvety feel and commanding structure that keep me coming back for more.

Inkwell wines come from Dudley Brown's single vineyard which sits on an exceptional plot of dirt gazing over the Gulf of St. Vincent in McLaren Vale.

When you see the vines grown on thin sandy loam soils which barely manage to hide giant sheets of limestone and ironstone, you know straightaway the guy who farms them is a brutal taskmaster.

The ocean's cooling breeze battles for supremacy with the warmth of summer gully winds - keeping the few vines and precious berries compact, concentrated and somewhat confused.

The best part is that the 'battle royal' makes it to the bottle - soft yet firm, elegant yet powerful, the wines surprise and satisfy at every turn.

There's a lively natural acidity that ensures the wines develop with grace. Wild yeasts, a basket press and fine grained French oak barrels all play their part too.

One wine critic friend calls Inkwell's Shiraz "300 pounds of love in a bottle" and "like a big man that dances softly' - the good thing for you and me, is that this battle of nature rages on, and on, and on.

We're the only retailer in the country that has been able to get their hands on this little beauty as there's only a handful of cases in production...... these are Secret Vines for sure!

 

RRP $30

Tim's Rating: 93/100

 

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