Out Of The Bottle
With David Ellis The James Brazill 2008 Clare Shiraz & Penfolds Bin 379
Boutique
Clare Valley maker Julie Barry has come up with a stunner of a 2008
Shiraz under her quirkily-named Good Catholic Girl label, a wine that
could possibly have had some Divine intervention as its fruit was
picked in the midst of a fiery heatwave, yet remarkably it came through
with flying colours.
Julie’s named this wine The James Brazill
2008 Clare Shiraz after her late father, Jim (James Brazill) Barry from
whose superb Armagh vineyards he gave her cuttings in 1997 to start her
own winemaking venture.
With such a lineage those cuttings have
certainly done her proud, for despite that fortnight of over 36-degree
heat she was able to create a wine that’s a veritable liquid Christmas
cake of plum, blackberry and other dark fruit flavours, balanced by
nice savoury notes.
Good value at $30 to share on the table with
lamb shanks baked in thyme or a hearty rabbit stew with winter
vegetables; if you can’t find it locally, email
enquiry@goodcatholicgirl.com.au or phone Julie direct on 0419 822 909. One For Lunch
$51,062
just paid for a bottle of the first-ever Penfolds Grange – an
experimental drop made by Max Schubert in 1951 – makes the $599
asking-price for the current-release 2006 look positively cheapskate.
The
1951 Grange was amongst a number of rare Penfolds treasures auctioned
online this month by Langtons; others included an Auldana St Henri,
Magill 1911 (half-bottle) that sold for $1265 and a Penfolds Bin 379
Special Bottling Sauternes, Barossa Valley 1960 that fetched $1208.
Langton’s
Founder and General Manager, Stewart Langton said the 1951 Grange was
particularly interesting for collectors: “Grange has no parallel in the
world,” he said. “No-one can collect the first vintage of the great
First Growth wines of Bordeaux, yet this is possible here in Australia
with Grange.”
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