Henry's Drive Vignerons 2006 Dead Letter Office - 90pts

Henry's Drive Vignerons 2006 Dead Letter Office (South Australia) Australia

Availability: Widely available

Cost: $30

Alcohol: 15%

Date Tasted: March 8th, 2010

Tasting Notes: A powerful, yet refined wine made of 100% Shiraz sourced and blended, in fine Australian tradition, from two top districts: McLaren Vale and Padthawa (67% & 33% respectively). The resulting wine offers brooding aromas of intense, but not jammy, red and black berries, vanilla, fine oak grain, cherries and light pepper. The creamy-textured palate is a tad hot, but the alcohol is well masked by the cool-berry fruit flavours and pepper-spice. This does not affect the long and well-balanced finish.

The Dead Letter Office is a bit pricey (in Canada, especially), but you do get a lot of refined flavour for the cost. It serves well as a decent entry into the upper-echelon of fine Australian Shiraz which can get expensive quickly but offer so much more than their $10-15 counter-parts.

This Shiraz is ready to drink now and has the quality acid & tannins to last another 3-4 years. Pair with a peppercorn encrusted steak or grilled lamb. Drink now through 2013.
 - LC

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