Jim Barry McRae Shiraz Wine, 75 cl

Red Red Wine.

Excellent wine and rare

Excellent quality

This is a stunning wine and shows just what the Aussies do best. Tom Barry has now taken on wine making responsibilities and this winery is clearly going from strength to strength. This needs at least an hour in decanter before drinking and watch out for the sediment at the bottom. This will last for another 10 years or more easily if you're lucky to have more than one!

I was lucky enough to be given a bottle of this big and hearty Australian Shiraz to review. The 2010 Shiraz is sold as `ready now' but would benefit from storage. And I rather concur, but unfortunately Vine reviews must be written within a short time-scale, so this has been opened and enjoyed early. It's a great big basso profundo with a rasp of a reach. And, I do suggest drinkers follow the advice on the bottle to open and decant and let breathe some. Initially, I don't think I gave the breathing space it needed, as the first taste puckered with tannin and acidity, and this was definitely something, to my taste-buds, that would have benefitted from being allowed perhaps another year to smooth out, and be equally robust, but sing a little more tenderly. Or, at least, something needing to be taken with equally strong and solid food. Not a sipping wine on its own, at all. But I changed my mind, on subsequent tasting. This may or may not be anathema to a proper oenophile sophisticate, which I'm not, but I resealed the bottle with one of those `pump out the air' devices, and waited a couple of days. And poured out a second glassful, leaving it in the glass for half an hour or so before trying it. And suddenly, here was a different wine. Still big, still strong, but the acidity and the tannin seemed to have calmed down, and other interesting flavours were happening. There was a kind of, well, I can only say, soft, leathery quality, underneath that, a slightly sweet, caramel and.........well it's lovely, warm, mellow but could, if you chose, still bite and roar!