A shimmering Australian beauty

Matthew Jukes reviews his favourite young shiraz from Australia's renowned Hunter Valley.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

2011 Brokenwood, Graveyard Shiraz, Hunter Valley, New South Wales, Australia (£80, Fortnum & Mason, 0845-300 1707; Planet of the Grapes, 020-7405 4912; Flagship Wines, 01727-865309).

In a bygone era, shiraz from the Hunter Valley was known and labelled as Hunter Burgundy. This tells us the wines were smooth, silky, medium-weight, aromatic, and quite different to the blockbuster styles we see today from regions such as the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale in South Australia.

Today, the finest wines in the Hunter still have silkiness and allure, not unlike that of the pinot noir variety, but they possess spice and gameiness that can only be found in top quality shiraz. My featured wine is my favourite young Hunter shiraz release ever.

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Made by the awesomely talented wine guru Iain Riggs, Graveyard is one of Australia's most revered wines. This 2011 vintage arrived in the UK on 24 November, so you are the very first to hear about it.

The awesome control, shimmering beauty and luxuriant texture put this among the very finest shiraz wines in the world and, with only 13% alcohol, it really does have a Burgundy' feel on the palate. Unnervingly forward (you can drink it now), it will age and gather even more foresty and truffley notes over the next decade.

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

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

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.

 

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