I was hunting through the cellar this week and picked out a Henschke Hill of Grace
and was happy to see it was a 2005 vintage.
Wine fact:
The quality of the 2005 vintage is sure to be ranked as one of the best on record.
How to hell did I get that?
Well 15 years ago I purchased it through a liquor store I worked at, I think $180.00
and put it away in the cellar and there it has been sleeping ever since.
I opened the wine Friday afternoon poured a glass and put the cap back on
to let it breathe and open up overnight.
My first impressions were;
*Thank God the wine is under Stelvin.
*I can’t believe this is 18 years old.
*The wine is so youthful, powerful and focused.
*I can’t wait until tomorrow to look at the wine.
*Wow, I caught this wine at its peak.
*And so on, well I should not have feared.
The wine was in pristine condition and showing no signs of fading away, any time soon.
The colour was dark, almost black.
The nose was restrained, however giving up purple flowers, lavender maybe, with supper intense black liquorice fruits.
In the mouth, the wine was yet again very intense with rich velvety liquorice fruits. And the most wonderful fine tannins that just nibbled at your tongue with never ending power and joy.
The one thing that really stood out in the back ground was the focused deep Shiraz fruit flavour.
By this I mean, there was no questioning or mistaking the grape variety used at all, it was clearly a dark deep Shiraz.
I never realised just how powerful and intense the wine was until I had finished drinking the wine and the power remained in my mouth for the rest of the night.
Everything else I tasted was insipid, and just lacking flavour or being of any great interest at all.
That is what happens when you drink one of Australia’s timeless benchmark wines!
Your palate gets both spoilt and ruined for drinking everyday wines again.
My job just gets harder and harder each day.
Rating:
A once in a life time experience!
Michael Lillis
the Rot has set in.
I enjoyed this wine with a simple meal of fat spicy beef and fennel sausages with roast vegetables.
Yes, this was a good food and wine match. Fine wine is sometimes best enjoyed with a simple meal to complement the wine; Not to compete with the wine.
I would just like to point out the importance of putting good wines down. I personally could not afford to drink the wines I do if I hadn’t invested so much on wines 10, 20 years ago when they were well-priced.
Once upon a time, I could afford to pay $180.00 for a wine,
yes it’s expensive! (But I don’t have kids)
However, I could not afford to pay $1400.00 for a wine Now!
(And I still don’t have kids) Go figure!
There is always one question I get asked, is the wine really worth that much?
My reply is simple; I have never tasted a wine like it before and it gave me great drinking pleasure.
Yes there are good wines on the market for $40.00 to $100.00
However, the world of Fine Wine really is in a class of its own. The fruit used comes from 100-year-old vines.
New oak casks are used to the mature wine. Some wines spend two, or three years in oak
then another year or two in a bottle before release.
And you might have to wait ten or twenty years for the wine to hit its drinking window.
Now that’s where your money goes, is the time spent sitting around the cellar before the wine is ready to be sold.
Waiting 10 or 20 years before drinking it is entirely up to you, and your desire to taste the wine at its best!
