Lazy Ballerina 2007 Shiraz Nov 08

Tasting Note

Sydney Time

Lazy Ballerina 2007 Shiraz Nov 08

I actually tried this wine twice. I wasn't happy with the first bottle and thought there may have been some variation caused by the twin top cork. The second bottle was much better and confirmed the failure of the cork in the first bottle. I might add, that with the second bottle the wine had penetrated up past the condom end of the cork, so if there was any taint in the body of a cork proper, it could still have got into the wine. In my bigoted opinion, twin top corks are a very poor alternative, and hopefully with the next vintage this producer will ditch them. Diam are a far better alternative for those that want a natural cork, cork based alternative.

The bouquet was interesting; there was lots happening with sweet and savoury spices over coffee oak and dark fruit; pepper and earthy notes were also evident. Trying to analyse this wine was a right bastard. It has now complete the shutdown, although it's easy to see that it has all the right components in the right portion; the deeply-seated fruit combines with crisp acid and fine, tight tannins to form an ample-weight wine that is very solid, but even after a solid decant the wine didn't want to show much. The flavour profile is complete black but there is some slight green, but ripe character on the mid-palate, (which does not detract from the wine.) Flavour is very intense for its weight. My gut feel that this wine is rated as Highly Recommended with **** for value, and should turn into something very good.