Two Hands, Two Days

I'm running out of storage space in my house for many things; shoes, kitchen gadgets and WINE. While it's hard to part with any of the three, if I don't start drinking, I'm afraid I'm going to have to start dumping.

Saturday I sat in front of my "cellar" (sounds more sophisticated than wine frig) and caressed bottles for about 20 minutes before deciding on the Two Hands, Max's Garden Heathcote Shiraz, 2005. I have never held on to Australian wine for any length of time so I was curious to see how this was.

According to Two Hands, the grapes grown in Heathcote this particular year were "rich and dense". When I first opened the bottle, I wondered if this was perhaps on it's way out. I got a nose full of acetone. I let it sit for about an hour and started to taste some raspberry and cherry, not as much pepper as I was expecting.

Day two, I took what was left to a party and sampled it again. I enjoyed it more the second day. It had smoothed out and opened up more instead of going south; even tasted some blueberry this time. What has your experience been with aging Aussie wines and Shiraz in particular? I have more.

Bye Bye Bitch

I was so disappointed to learn this week that one of my favorite fun winemakers is out of business, Grateful Palate Airwines. The company not only produced good affordable wine but it was some of the most cleverly packaged. 

The Boarding Pass Shiraz had a label that looked like an actual boarding pass complete with a luggage tag around the neck and directions on how to enjoy the ride (or consumption) on the back.  

Perhaps the bottle that got the most attention was the Bitch Grenache. The word Bitch was in lovely, black script writing across a light pink label. Appropriately enough it came in a screw cap. The wine was a bit spicy with fruit on the finish…the “Bitch” was tasty. But she’s gone. I know there are bottles of both out there somewhere so be sure to buy them if you happen to run across any! Oh, and pick one up for me too!!

Blue Eyed Boy

Blue Eyed Boy, sounds like someone I'd like to date or at least mercilessly flirt with. Instead it is a fruit bomb from Molly Dooker, an Australian winery. The winemakers, Sarah and Sparky Marquis, named this Shiraz after their very own blue eyed boy, Luke. His picture is even on the label to the left.

The wine has a high alcohol content at 16% and is bursting with delicious black fruit and spice; a little smokey with smooth tannins. The 2006 got 96 points from Wine Advocate. It wasn't tagged in my modest cellar so I couldn't remember exactly how long it had been aging. I got online and found it could've sat in there for another ten years. At first I was a little disappointed that I was so impatient (once again) and opened it.

I've had Blue Eyed Boy a number of times and always enjoyed it. Then I read a quote from the winemakers calling the Blue Eyed Boy one of their three Party Wines that, "make an ordinary day extraordinary. They’ll make you the life of the party any where you take them!"  I smiled and thought, how perfect that I DID open it!