Wines of the week!

Hello there!

It's a relatively slow wine week. I have been out most evenings and thus have not had proper wine appreciation time.

Luckily, there was a lovely food and wine festival in Mordialloc today. It was held in the park on the beach, with many local wineries and food vendors. There was live Jazz and Blues music as well as some African and Tibetan sounds.



You gotta love a bass with flames painted on it.



There may not be funnel cakes here in Australia, but there are cones of fried calamari!

Anyways, back to the wines.

Penola Estate 2002 Shiraz - Shit. I tried it and hated it, I even waited a day after opening to try it a second time just in case it needed to breathe a bit. Nope. The label mentioned something about a hint of white pepper making it a shiraz. I think their definition of "hint" is a bit askew. The wine tasted like a mouthful of white pepper. I poured it down the drain, which kind of sucked since it was a 15 dollar bottle, which is expensive enough to expect good quality here.

Geppetto 2004 Shiraz - Much, much better. What a Shiraz is meant to taste like. Very full-flavored, with spicy peppery-ness that is balance by dark berry flavors. I enjoyed it highly.

Balcombe Rise Shiraz - Also a good one. Not quite as full bodied as the Geppetto, but it had a nice chocolate undertone to it.