Ebenezer Seppeltsfield Barossa Valley Shiraz 2009

Variety: Shiraz 

Country of origin: Australia
Wine appellation: Barossa Valley
Vintage: 2009
Alcohol content: 14.5%
Color: deep blackish red with light garnet meniscus
Bouquet: intense, blackberries, black chocolate, pepper, mint
Taste: full body, huge fruit, overripe black sour cherry, blackberry followed by black currant, very round, spiciness, medium tannins, good acidity, alcohol is slightly burning at the back of the mouth, longer finish

Recommended food pairing: juicy medium rare steak
Overall score: 5+8+12+7+7+50=89
Price: CZK 400
Stopper: screw cap

For lover of Shiraz this is BIG Shiraz, I would score it even higher should it have lower alcohol. I cooled the wine down to 18°C and the alcohol still was not well encompassed in the texture. Maybe my palate is still not completely burned with heavy new world wines and keeps the finesse that this Shiraz decided to kill by filling every pore of my tongue. The wine is from St. Hallet winery made by Toby Barlow for M&S. I tasted similar wine from St. Hallet  in May 2013 from Tesco. However this one seems to be be higher play. The wine still feels quite fruity with almost no tertiary tones developed (screw cap??).But do not get me wrong it is not young and prematurely opened, knowing my taste I will leave the remaining bottles still for 1-3 years in the cellar to check the development of the wine. The only problem I have is the  fact that the bottles will have to be tasted with some NW wine lower as I already started to move from NW wines back to Europe. Yes the wine is very nice, (I remember in 2004 I was in big tasting of Australian Shirazes and I loved it), but the time has moved and I am not a huge fan of it at this point. Despite that I tried to be as objective as possible, maybe the real score of this wine for Shiraz lovers be 1-2 points higher:-).