Strong Arms Shiraz
Laura's Review
Since this wine is pretty high in alcohol content, I invited my two friends over to share it with. We started out with high expectations, since the
Wine Advocate gave this wine
91 Points, almost unheard of for a $11 bottle of wine. This wine is deep in color and looks inky, and the nose is heavy on cedar with some subtle hints of fruit. We drank this wine right after opening it, and thought, what is the big deal? It was fine, but somewhat bland. All we could taste was the high alcohol content, even making it a little hard to get down. After a half-hour, the wine really opened up and revealed the wonderful ripe fruit flavors and a soft lingering mouthfeel (the alcohol was still there, but not as overpowering). It was like velvet. This ended up being the kind of wine that makes me want to curl up with cashmere, close my eyes, and just taste the wonderful balance of this wine. I feel like I have tasted what
Shiraz is supposed to taste like. We didn't stop there though! We wanted to see if it could stand up to one of our favorite affordable Shiraz's, Yellow Tail. The results were varied. I liked the Strong Arm more because there was more depth and complexity. One friend agreed with me, but the other preferred the Yellow Tail, which was more fruit forward and bit lighter in body.
Should you try it?
Definitely. This will be a great wine to bring to a holiday party and try with friends. It would also hold up well with a nice steak or grilled veggie pizza. If you haven't had a Shiraz before, I would recommend trying
Yellow Tail Shiraz or even
Blackbox Shiraz, which are also both great values and great wines to experience this type of wine for the first time. Then go out and get this!
Also try Parson's Flat Shiraz, a little bit higher end, but WELL worth it!
This page was last modified on 07/22/09 09:53:41 PM