The Black Pig Clare Valley Shiraz 2016

Wine:  The Black Pig Prize Shiraz
Winemaker: Fuse
Vintage: 2016
Variety: Shiraz
Price: £19.99
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A big bulky Shiraz, with a powerful bouquet and wonderfully extracted flavours of inky dark fruits, vanilla, liquorice and leather. 

Incredibly intense, with grippy, almost wild tannins, a bit of a mouthful for sure and a lengthy decant is most definitely required. A good food pairing also works well, with steak and ale pie working wonderfully for me personally.

All in all, a good wine, in fact a very good wine, but currently a bit boisterous and needs some care and attention. For sure will be much more approachable in three to five years.

Domaine De Grange Neuve Monbazillac 2011

It's been a long while since I enjoyed a sweet white wine as much as this; with it's wispy tones of toffee, sweet butterscotch and burnt marmalade, it's hard to not to be utterly enamoured with this absolute beauty from the Dordogne! We enjoyed it as an aperitif and then with some soft blue cheese, quite the pairing, if I do say so myself!

Evocative honeyed aromas flood the senses initially, yielding to some alluring citrus, with a subtle grassy background note and a mild nuttiness. In the mouth, toffee, butterscotch and marmalade mingle effortlessly, creating wine harmony and a glazing mouthfeel, that begs you to take another sip. This wine has bags of character, a linear acidity and a grippy intensity, keeping all the flavours in check wonderfully and making for supremely easy drinking; no mean feat for a sweet wine, where the majority of affordable examples end up being overly sweet and cloying and ultimately one dimensional.

Serve well chilled, around 6'c and allow to warm in the glass and enjoy!

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