I'll be the first to admit that I'm easily swayed by aesthetics. As a graduate of a graphic arts high school and with many hours spent studying photos and slides for art history classes in college I have always viewed wine labels as an underappreciated graphic arts form. So the Wine Blogging Wednesday challenge this month--hosted by Derrick over at An Obsession with Food (and wine)--to pick a pretty label and write about the wine inside had me from the word go.
Aesthetics alone, though, would have put me in some new, and possibly expensive, territory so I put some dollar limits on my search. The task was to find a pretty label on a bottle costing $25.00 or less. Any country, any varietal, any appellation.
Though I tend to be attracted to color and abstract images, in the end it was the beautiful, sparse, and "bookish" quality of the 2003 The Lucky Country blend from the Barossa Valley produced by Two Hands Wines, that drew me in. Perhaps it is my mood these days or the snow, but the minute I saw this bottle all I could think of was pouring a glass, building a fire, and putting my feet up on the couch with a great book. Hmmm. The image on this bottle is of a rock pool in Australia with a lone figure standing in its midst. It is haunting and lovely, two attributes I hoped to find in the wine.
As it turns out, I really loved what was inside the bottle as much as I loved the outside. But here's the thing--this is really a food wine. To really enjoy it, I would have to have, say, a few bites of goat cheese quiche with leeks and thyme to accompany it. But what a small penalty.
Two Hands Wines makes a number of Shiraz blends and this one is a combination of 85% Grenache, 10% Shiraz, and 5% Mourvedre. In the glass it is a deep and intense claret color. On the nose, berry and licorice predominate. On the tongue (after a bit of time to breathe) the fruit comes through but does not overwhelm and the finish is quick and dry. With food, however, the fruit comes forward nicely (but not in that volumptous way that is characterhistic of Australian Shiraz) and the finish lingers a bit more. Overall, this is a country I want to come back to. Not quite haunting but definitely lovely.
2003 The Lucky Country, Barossa Valley Shiraz, $16.00
That does look very cool. Is it a photograph? I like the big sky and clouds. Gives me the impression of freedom.
Posted by: weekendwino | December 08, 2005 at 11:09 AM