Baileys of Glenrowan '1920's Block' Shiraz 2006
Has some hay, cedarwood, smoke and fresh leather, but essentially a cherry-plummed beauty, rich with fruit and those distinctive Glenrowan notes of ferrous-floral – lavender oil and rock. Really good structure here. Really smart wine. 94 points Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
The land tells us and, as it turns out, so do the wines. A group of us worked through an extensive tasting of Baileys of Glenrowan wines past and present, and without any witnesses being lead a number of folks commented on the peculiarly strong perfumed aromatics of the shiraz wines – when, that is, they hadn’t been clubbed with oak. Even more fascinating was the fact that the wines commonly gave off perfumes that seemed distinctive to the region; some called it lavender oil, others cherry sap; others a more simple cherry blossom
It hardly needs to be pointed out that a region that can grown shiraz with a characteristic peculiar to it is gold in the world of find wine. The argument then: the Glenrowan vineyards that abut the Warby Ranges and nestle close to the granite have probably been long undervalued in Australian wine, and need to be showcased better.
Which is a nice way to introduce a quirky fact: from the 1950s to the 1990s Wynns of Coonawarra produced a wine called Wynns Ovens Valley shiraz . It is remembered with great fondness both for its peculiarly impressive ability to age, and its distinctive flavour characteristics. The folks at Wynns Coonawarra today still regard and remember it with affection, and don’t need much encouragement to pull out a bottle of it from the winery’s museum.
That Wynns Ovens Valley shiraz , for the most part and for a long time, was made using Glenrowan shiraz . Campbell Mattinson, The Winefront
