The Auswine Forum

2002 Tin Shed Single Wire Shiraz

This is one of the new breed of Barossa Shiraz, intense and powerful fruit, with the usual regional chocolate edges, but with new and old French oak rather than American oak, and boy, does that work well. Power and depth are here in spades, but along with this comes style and balance. A glass stainer, with the deepest red purple colour, the nose is all Shiraz, perfectly ripened fruit - plums, black and bark berries, spices, liquorice and hints melted chocolate all blend together with dusted vanilla from the oak .. lovely. The palate is full and rich, filling the mouth with a mix of berries and plums plus spice and vanilla, fine tannin on a finish that goes on and on. Great wine.

Gavin, have to agree with you on how good this wine is, scarcity is it's only fault. IMO it was the wine of the day at the Norwood Small Makers Exhibition last Saturday.

I rate the Tin Shed Single Wire right up there amongst the other early stars of the 2002 vintage, Kalleske, St.Jakobi, Torbreck Struie, Leibich Darkie, Kaesler Bogan & Old Vine.

These are great wines now with long futures.

Gavin,

How long do you think this wine will cellar for ?

Mike Hawkins wrote:Gavin,

How long do you think this wine will cellar for ?

A bit tricky, will drink well young, but has intensity and balance, so should cellar well. How do you like your Shiraz, still with some primary fruit, or aged and developed?

Mike Hawkins wrote:
Gavin,

How long do you think this wine will cellar for ?

Hi Mike,

Like Steve I thought this was the wine of the day at the Norwood Hotel Small Winemakers Show against some good opposition. Unfortunately with so many wines in so little time, this time I didn't take any detailed notes.

On the day it didn't appear overly purple or inky in colour, which could signal there's not a lot of additional tannins to seep out over time. The huge body of elegant fruit stood out though, with excellent length and softness, and it's not a fruit bomb at 14% alcohol. It's difficult to say, but I suspect it will cellar very well and change subtlely for 7-10 years at a rough guess.

Cheers
Ian

Thanks Ian and Gavin,

I'm glad I ordered some, sounds like my style. Based on your notes I'll probably try one now and look at the rest at the end of the decade.

Mike

Tried this last night, opened up smelling like a blueberry milkshake with chocolate topping (or so Andrea said, I don't drink milk let alone blueberry milkshakes). This is a seriously good wine, massive extract without huge tannins, bitterness or loss of balance, the bottle ring on the corian benchtop took a while to rub off and the few drops left in the glasses overnight had dropped out substantial solids, my tongue is still black this morning.

The wine got better and better over the 2 hours it took us to finish the bottle, masses of complex blueberry, milk chocolate, spice and plums revealing layers of complexity with a fine tannin backbone and subtle oak, it has enough clean acid on the finish to stop the palate clogging up. This is one of those wines that remind you again that there is a lot more to Barossa shiraz than big sweet-fruit/oak cocktails. It will probably cellar 5+ years, but I'd try it again after a year or so in the bottle to see what happens as it settles down.