When I caught up recently with Michael Twelftree, co-owner of Australia’s Two Hands wines, he was touring the U.S. showing off the 2006 vintage of the Two Hands Garden Series Shiraz.
There are six wines in the Garden Series, all of them from different growing regions throughout South Australia and Victoria. Each wine is named after members of the two families that founded Two Hands in 2000.
Most important, however, each wine is distinctive in its own right, and each expresses nuances of structure and flavor that are specific to a region.
Though the Garden Series is not Two Hands’ top of the line, these are extraordinary wines and hardly inexpensive at about $60 a pop. Over the brief lifespan of the winery, Two Hands Garden Series Shiraz has cultivated something of a cult following here in the United States.
For the most part they play into the stereotype of very ripe, jammy Aussie Shiraz that we’ve all come to expect from Down Under, but the Two Hands style manages to stand apart because the Two Hands wines achieve levels of elegance and finesse you wouldn’t think possible in wines with such raw power.
In this video Michael walks us through the series, explaining the sourcing of each wine while describing its distinguishing characteristics.
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