Wine of the week: A lusty, sublime muscat

published 8 April 2013

Yalumba, Museum Reserve Muscat, Rutherglen, Victoria, Australia (about £14.50, half bottle, Flagship, 01727-865309; Virginwines.co.uk; Morrisons; Denby Dale Wines, 01484-865222; Gales of Llangollen, 01978-860089; Hailsham Cellars, 01323-846238; Hermitage Cellars, 01243-431002; Selfridges, 020-7318 3939; Sketty Wine, 01792-203450; Taurus, 01483-548484; The Bottleneck, 01843-861095; The Guildford Wine Co, 01483-560647; Auswinesonline.co.uk; WineDirect.co.uk).

Yalumba has been making wine in Angaston, in the Barossa Valley in South Australia, for over 160 years. It makes a small range of fortified wines and this epic muscat is one of the gems in their glittering portfolio. Winemaker David Zimmermann joined Yalumba in 1967 and since 1986 he has been responsible for all of the fortified wines.

He makes them in the time-honoured, ancient way. A student of the great Rudi Kronberger (a Barossa legend), Zimm loads his lusty fortifieds with masses of intensity and exotic, toffeed fruit notes.

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With seven years spent in French oak barrels, the fig, treacle, brle, rose petal, cinnamon, espresso and ginger lily notes are sublime. Super-sweet and hedonistic, this is a pudding or after-dinner wine that will keep for an eternity and not spoil once opened.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (www.matthewjukes.com).

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’. He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner.

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy. His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.