Sterling Wine Auctions Australia

The Peel Estate Shiraz Tasting Vintage 2000

20 of the world's best Shiraz from the 2000 vintage were lined up for a blind tasting

Cape Mentelle Margaret River
Brown Brothers Patricia King Valley
Peel Estate Peel WA
Brokenwood Graveyard Hunter Valley
Penfolds Grange
Houghton Gladstone Frankland River
Geoff Merrill Henley McLaren Vale
Guigal Chateau d’ Ampuis Northern Rhone
Howard Park Scotsdale Great Southern WA
Boekenhoutskoof Franschhoek South Africa
Majella Coonawarra
Isole e Olena Chianti
Blackjack Bendigo
McWilliams O’Shea lower Hunter River
Coriole Lloyd McLaren Vale
Guigal Cote Rotie Northern Rhone Valley
Penfolds RWT Barossa Valley
Torbreck The Factor Barossa Valley
Peter Lehman The Stonewell Barossa Valley
Orlando Lawsons Padthaway

Top wines for me?
Loved them all! It was hard for me to believe that 20 wines could be so good, offer such a high quality and yet be so different in styles.
The ultimate test is which wine would you pull out of the cellar? For me it would get down to the occasion, the guests and what was on the menu. Loved them all!

Using this approach the $500 a bottle wines like the Grange looked pretty ordinary value against the “cheapies” like Peel Estate and Howard Park Scotsdale.

My blind favourites were very difficult to pick out of such a tight bunch. The Coriole Lloyd, the Grange and the Howard Park Scotsdale were probably my top three.

The Torbreck Factor was a darling, bred and blended magnificently, as you would expect from Torbreck, the new “noble house" of Australian premium wines.

If distinctive was the angle, a lady friend swooned over the good old Orlando Lawsons, which she said, was like eating her favourite imported mint chocolates. The Howard Park Scotsdale was stunning with fresh black pepper nose and delicious coolish climate ripe fruit.

The Frenchies and the Italian were all style and elegance. At the price so it should, but the Guigal Chateau Ampuis was a stunner. $200 a bottle or not, this super refined wine demands to be sipped and savoured.

The value and quality theme can't be ignored. When you think many of the wines on offer were retailing a few years ago for under $40 a bottle, the best is not always the most expensive.

I am becoming a big fan of Black Jack from Bendigo. Apparently Black Jack is an alternate name for the scull and cross bones pirate flag. This is a classic example of robbing from the rich, the modern way.

The 2000 vintage was hard work for Aussie winemakers. The Henschke flagship Hill of Grace was not made and many top producers were not happy with the final results.

Maybe I just don’t get it, or maybe we are all starting to get a little bit too fussy. I could not imagine a more enjoyable and exciting line up of wines. I fear that the aim for wine “perfection” (which is of course in itself an impossible contradiction) is pushing us to overlook individuality as we blindly chase after the style deemed to be the fashion of the day.

When you are in someone's home and eating their food and drinking their wine, politeness and fear of appearing a toady often kills off honest praise.

Will Nairn and the Peel Estate team have been producing some amazing wines for over twenty years in WA. Amazing expressive wines that cellar well and always impress. Well done!

Will's 2000 Shiraz was not the best wine of the day, but is was so close that it was under the same blanket that covered the big guns.

When it comes down to value the Peel Shiraz is the big winner. Buy some now before the Irish (Wills biggest customers) make the mistake of putting Mr Robert Parker on to it. I think Mr Parker would love Peel Shiraz and there goes the low price!

September 2006