Those who follow the wine trade are well aware that the winds of fortune have not been blowing in a favorable direction for Australia during the past few years, and part of the problem is that big, powerful Shiraz has ceased to be surprising or interesting to a fair number of people who once found it surprising and interesting.
I confess that I am occasionally one of those people, and that recently I have sometimes wondered if I don’t feel about Aussie Shiraz roughly as I feel about California Zinfandel: It can be impressive in its way, but it is just too much, rather like a dinner companion who talks too much and
too loudly.
Big Aussie Shiraz is often just too pushy to work well with many dinner dishes. Some are so pushy that they only pair well with, say, wolverine. And one can only eat wolverine so many times each year.
But then, just when this notion was starting to harden into a conviction for me, I open a bottle of Shiraz that totally blows me away with its completely irresistible deliciousness.
The wine was from Penley Estate in South Australia’s Coonawarra district, which is famous for Cabernet but much less so for Shiraz, 
which is more widely renowned in warmer regions like the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale. A “Special Select” bottling called “The Traveller,” it was from the 2005 vintage, and rings up for a hefty price of $50 that seemed to me entirely justified after tasting the wine.
It is very big, weighing in at a stated 15% alcohol, and absolutely packed with deep, concentrated flavors of blackberries, black currants, and bing cherries, along with a firm lashing of oak that accentuates the spicy character of the fruit and provides some wood tannin to help structure the finish. Big but not just big, it shows enough acidity to seem pure and even fresh despite its ripeness, and the symmetry of fruit, acidity, sweetness, spice, tannin, and savory notes makes the wine interesting and appealing sip after sip.
I’m writing this on a Sunday, and they say confession is good for the soul, so here goes: I was strongly tempted to cut bait on Aussie Shiraz, but I was wrong. I just hadn’t risen to the right bait for too long. Penley Estate’s “The Traveller” has made a believer out of me once again. I scored the wine at 94 points, and will publish a review to that effect along with the other WRO reviews that will come up on the site this coming Wednesday. It is imported by Old Bridge Cellars, and is well worth a search.
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