The world’s finest Aussie shiraz

Don't delay, says Matthew Jukes. When it comes to great shiraz, you need to own Up!

Matthew Jukes
By
published
in Features

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2013 La Violetta, Up! Shiraz, Great Southern, Western Australia (about £25, The Good Wine Shop, 020-8994 8184; Planet of the Grapes, 020-7831 2181; Covino, 01244-347727; The Knotted Vine, 020-86162170).

Cool-climate Australian shiraz is taking the world by storm and this is one of the finest I have tasted. It was six years ago when I first wrote up a wine from this estate in my 100 Best Australian Wines Report and I still remember the vivid flavour of 2008 La Ciornia Shiraz today.

Up! is cut from a similar cloth with heady, intense, pheromonal appeal and I can't believe that no stems have been used in this wine's production because the pepper and spice found here, which is usually determined from the addition of ripe stems and stalks during fermentation, is overwhelming. The black-cherry fruit is sleek and studded with raspy, iodine-pricked detail and the finish is crisp and angular. It leaves you with a desperately attractive slate-y freshness which cools your senses.

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This wine is expressive and dramatic in every respect it reminds me of a top flight, elemental Cornas from the northern Rhne, but with more freshness and juiciness on board. Up! floods your senses with invigorating perfume and because there is very little stock in the country you will have to act fast to secure a bottle. Do not delay you must own Up!

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