Stonewell Wines 2003 Red Nectar Shiraz Oct 04

Another new label for me, this time as the name suggests out of the famous Stonewell area in the Barossa. The vineyards are owned by Tammy Pfeiffer, a cousin of the winemaker, Troy Kalleske. As I understand it, there were only 33 cases of this wine made!

The lifted bouquet was brooding and took a lot of work to show itself; vanillin American oak characters, dark chocolate, bark berry/plum fruit, a touch of smoke, coffee and menthol. It really evolved and changed in the glass over the period of hours. Abundant chalky tannins and deeply seated fruit with balanced acid combine to form a well balanced package for this muscular weight wine that is a babe in arms and demands time to show its best. Length and persistence are both very good. Plum, blackberry, dark chocolate, aniseed, mint and a touch of an herbaceous bitter character produces a typical full flavoured Barossa Shiraz. With a big mouthful of flavour for the $, it is rated as Recommended with **** for value, this wine should improve with a few years in the bottle. As there is such a small quantity, it will be hard to find but is available from Victoria Cellars.