To watch this review & tasting, check out: youtube.com/watch?v=Rh-FBeQox0M&t=6s
An IMPORTANT COVID UPDATE: At Wine Hunters, our passion has always been about “boots on the ground” wine hunting – finding the treasures in the nooks and crannies. Obviously, locked down in Melbourne, this has been impossible since April. So please bear with us as we do what we can until Melbournians are allowed to move again.
Today, we tasted Bethany’s 2017 First Village Barossa Shiraz. Cool wine and a superb bargain!
The Barossa is Australia’s most legendary wine region, recognised worldwide. Most famous for big, bold Shiraz, the Barossa also produces Australia’s best Grenache. If you haven’t drunk a good straight up Barossa Grenache, you really, really should.
To us, the Barossa is a hit and miss region. A lot of wines that come from here are just too big and overcooked to have any nuance. On the other hand, skilled winemakers who exercise a little restraint can bring things out in a Barossa wine that can’t be done anywhere else in Australia. With some of the oldest vines in Australia, Bethany wines almost always fall in that latter, very special category.
Bethany’s 2017 First Village Shiras is a special wine – and really quite unique for a Barossa Valley Shiraz – definitely not a baked blackberry sledgehammer. The primary flavours we found were black cherry and mulberry – almost more cool climateish (relative to Barossa). There is an earthiness to this wine and almost some dark forest characteristics – mysterious and enchanting. What really lights it up, though, is all the texture and nuance. It is adroitly structured, with beautiful flavour notes playing off each other that keep the drinker well engaged. You really have to pay attention when you drink this wine to fully understand it. It’s not one that you just throw back. And that’s the hallmark of a great wine – it demands you respect it back. Overall, I’m giving this a 95 and going back to my first comment as the headline: this is a very unique and special Barossa Shiraz.
Food? This would be spectacular with a mushroom and truffle Risotto. Friend? The type of friend you’d enjoy having over for a complex wine on a rainy afternoon.
A few more Barossa Wineries you really have to check out include:
Arno Wine Co. – Arno makes some of Australia’s most extraordinary Grenache. In fact, their Grenache was our wine of the year last year!
Izway Wines is probably the coolest winery in the Barossa, and all of their wines are special. They do a few simply stunning Shirazes and an Aglianico that is A+
Kalleske Wines made us believers in what organic and biodynamic can really bring to a wine.
Liebichwein Winery is a very unique winery in the Barossa and well worth your time checking out. They’ve got some extraordinary aged wines and are just doing different, old world things all around.
And lastly, Schild Estate may be Australia’s best value for your money winery. That you can still get such wines for under $30 is something we should all be thankful for. Literally, Schild does not make a bad wine. Yum, yum, yum!
Wines like Bethany’s First Village Shiraz are #WhyWeLoveWine!
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