McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

Shiraz

Michael Twelftree and Richard Mintz established Two Hands with the aim of making the best possible Shiraz wines from fruit grown to good vineyards. Their intention was and still is to show the diversity of Australian Shiraz by highlighting regional characteristics and allowing the fruit to be the primary feature of the final wine. 14.5% alcohol.

Pop and Pour:  Color is very dark, dark violet edges.  Can see some light in center, but certainly no detail.  The nose is full of fruit and smoke, some sulfur or gunpowder.  Darker friar fruit.  Forest and bark.  On the palate the wine has good and full fruit, , but in the back drop there is a lighter airy cotton candy like fruit.  So there is a mix of real/fresh fruit and there are some candy like components as well.  Solid wine early.  Long finish.  Big lush fruit.  Jammy style without feeling sweet or cloying.  Has crowd appeal.  Doesn't taste cheap.  Dark wine, with a dark fruit feel.  Pretty dang solid early.

Fast Forward:  1 Hour.  If I had to sum up this wine, SOLID is a pretty good word.  I can't really say anything NEGATIVE about this wine right now.  Just about everything about this wine is GOOD or SOLID.  After I heard about the people behind this project, makes sense.  Michael Twelftree has good business sense and does a great job at putting out quality products,  This wine displays great "go gett'em" attitude at a great price.  This is a good Aussie Shiraz with great fruit, dark in nature, has some core fruit as well as some candy fruit elements.  Crowd pleaser, this wine is.

Overall:   How do you rate a wine that does everything good?  Is good, good enough?  Let me try to think of a few faults.  Hmmmmm.  I just get a feeling about this wine, that it is not SOULESS machine made plunk.  2 Buck Chuck is a crowd pleaser, mostly because of residual sugar, but it has no soul.  I don't seem to get the soulless feeling from this wine.  Yes, this wine appeals to the masses, but doesn't feel like it "sold out" for the masses either.  Let the debate begin about when Pearl Jam was good and when they sold out, they are always GOOD.  Good is a good thing, especially when there are no negatives attched.  Let's just hope Luck Country doesn't try to fight Ticketmaster.  .......barely, BUT ABOVE AVERAGE nonetheless.  "Go Get'em" ABOVE AVERAGE

9/25/11

Price $18.99