Australian wine at its finest

This fully mature, top-of-the-line Aussie Shiraz will make you go weak at the knees, says Matthew Jukes.

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

2005 Jim Barry, The McRae Wood Shiraz, Clare Valley, South Australia (£22.50, selected branches of Waitrose, www.waitrose.com ).

I will launch my annual 100 Best Australian Wines list next week online and this phenomenal red is one of my century of greats. The reason I am flagging it up a few days before the official release is because the sales will go nuts and I want you, my MoneyWeek reader, to have the first stab at getting some stock.

Very rarely do we see fully mature, top-of-the-line Aussie Shiraz on sale in the UK. The McRae Wood is a stupendous property which the late, great Jim Barry bought 45 years ago, and it's where he planted his first shiraz vineyard. Made with lashings of American oak and swathes of blueberry, cinnamon, tar, lavender and vanilla this is one of those wines that is so evocative you barely know where to start.

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Now that other super-premium reds from Australia have hit and surpassed the £100 mark, it is encouraging to know that this wine still has its feet on the ground. Peter Barry (Jim's inspirational and highly skilled son) marks his 25th anniversary at the helm of this iconic company this year. I would urge all of you to raise a glass (better still a case) and drink his health.

This is Australian wine at its finest and I know that you will go weak at the knees when you taste it.

Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year.

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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