Wine of the week: two cunning Australian blends

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published 1 April 2022

2021 Thistledown, Gorgeous Old Vine Shiraz, Small Batch, Riverland, Australia

The shiraz or syrah grape variety is equally at home flying solo or being used as a component in a blend. It dominates the partnership in this thrilling wine by taking up 86% of the bottle, and the remaining proportion is a rather unlikely 14% zibibbo, or muscat. I have never tasted a shiraz/zibibbo blend before, and it occurs to me that the name Gorgeous is entirely apt here. This is a wine that majors on fresh berry fruit notes drawn from a single vineyard of old-vine shiraz while the zibibbo adds lustre and gloss, a little like those wines that employ viognier to do a similar, but perhaps more perfumed, task.

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While some find shiraz/viog blends a little heady and fulsome, I doubt they would have a problem here because the white-grape addition augments the silkiness and slipperiness of this delicious wine. With only 13.5% alcohol on board, there is a freshness here, too, that lifts the finish and completes the picture.

From the same stable, there is another spot of cunning blending in the form of 2021 Wilder & Wilder, Cloud Cuckoo Land Montepulciano/Nero d’Avola (£69 for a case of six bottles, thefinewinecompany.co.uk; £12.99, haywines.co.uk). The blend is a three-way combo of 60% montepulciano, 28% nero d’Avola and 12% barbera. There is always something new to discover in this wonderful world of wine!

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

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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.