Wine Review: Black Mountain Shiraz

Posted by Wine Welfare | Filed under $4-$6, California, Napa Valley, Red, Shiraz, Syrah, USA

A Shiraz from California (What?)

The Black Mountain Shiraz was a chance find, and it turned out to be a winner of a Shiraz. Though we’ve only been able to find it at Trader Joe’s (which makes no sense given that it would probably cost the same if not less to sell it online), you might be able to find it at your local grocery store or wine shop. Just to be clear, this is actually a California wine, but the folks at Black Mountain are calling it a “Down Under Shiraz,” whatever that means. If you remember, Shiraz is made from the Syrah grape, but down under they just call it “Shiraz.” So, basically, Black Mountain just wants to confuse people. We even read somewhere that the Black Mountain company had actually trademarked the term “Down Under” in the U.S.

Color

Light for a Shiraz. Syrah is usually dark, somewhat inky, a rather fruit-forward, solid wine. This one looks like Pinot Noir.

Nose

Rhubarb, black cherry and black currants soaked in rum. There was quite a bit of heat on the nose. After a few minutes you could smell some cinnamon and pepper.

Taste

At least it tastes like Syrah: big blackcurrant jam, boysenberry syrup, cinnamon and white pepper. The wine doesn’t have much more than that. No real structure, and it kind of just sits in your mouth, giving off the fruit and spice flavors and then…leaves. Not much of a middle or end, so you can’t really call it hollow. It’s just, light and dull, but at $6.00, you can probably move past all that and serve to your guests during Thanksgiving.

With Food

Since the wine really has no structure but a lot of fruit, you might want to save this as an “end-of-the-evening-and-everyone-is-drunk-off-the-good-stuff” bottle.

Available at Trader Joe’s for around $6.00!

Check out our other Shiraz reviews.

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Comments (0) | November 10th, 2009

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