Made From: High quality fruit and A-Grade French Oak Aromas & Flavours: Black cherry, plum, tobacco Drink if you like: A perfectly cellared classic Aussie blend that is drinking beautifully Fun Fact: A grade fruit, 30% new French oak and 7 years cellaring is insane at this price point
A complex beast this, bolstered with 30% new French oak. Blackberries, black cherry, plum, spice and dark chocolate here, plus a note of tobacco. Plenty of fine tannins to finish. Drink any time over the next decade.
Murray Street Vineyards currently farm around 130 acres at Gomersal and 90 acres at Greenock. These plantings comprise Grenache that dates as far back as the 1940s and Shiraz from the 1960s. The vast majority of fruit that finds its way into MSV bottlings is estate grown with very small parcels of fruit from other growers in the region. This fruit is bought with the intention of helping Murray Street workout if they ‘need’ to buy other vineyards in the region. Murray Street have an amazing track record on the accolade front, picking up “Most Successful Australian Exhibitor” at the Decanter World Wine Awards and "Barossa Winery of the Year" at the Melbourne International Wine & Spirits Competition. Never willing to rest on previous achievements, they have continued to invest significantly more money into improving their existing vineyards. The Murray Street Vineyards philosophy is “know the land and there’s only one way to do things, celebrate the DNA from dirt to fruit, preserve that in bottle and then get better at what we do.”
Winemaker Ben Perkins joined MSW in 2018 and oversaw the completion of the 2018 wines and began quietly steering the wines towards fruit purity and intensity. At the time, we noted that the wines offered less but higher quality oak and a surge in fruit concentration and purity. He is an excellent winemaker.
This week we sipped on not one, not two but three bottles of Mr Riggs Montepulciano wine. Mr Riggs is a James Halliday 5 star rated winery which is a pretty amazing achievement in itself. You know when you crack open any wine from these guys we are talking about a glass of seriously good wine and this one didn't disappoint either!
This might seem like a strange one, but I can honestly say that this combo really works. Usually, when you think of burgers you lean towards a beer, or even a nice glass of red. The freshness of the apple, spice coming through from the tomato jam, and the addition of pork had me leaning towards a Riesling.