TN: Seppelt Chalambar Shiraz 2010

[Waiters Friend]

I believe this is a wine that has been produced for four or five decades now. It's a "commercial" wine, but has been a regular 6 pack buy for me for a few years, although I am concerned that the last 3-4 vintages have moved from the Great Western winemaking base. Time (and opinion) will tell on these vintages.

In this wine, the label states "Bendigo and Grampians". This isn't always the case. I approached this with a degree of caution.

The 2010, however, is a very pleasant surprise. Deep crimson in colour. The nose is redolent of dark berries, chocolate and cloves, with vanillan oak in support. The palate is quite full and has a range of elements, including drying tannins, full (but developed) fruit flavours, dried herbs, supporting acid, some cedar. A medium to full-bodied wine.

I started buying Chalambar many years ago (when my budget was more limited), and in the meantime I have acquired stocks of the St Peters and Mount Ida shiraz. If the 2010 Chalambar is this good, I expect great things from my stocks of these upper level wines. From a purely Chalambar perspective, this is the best I've seen since 2006, and will go another 4-6 years with ease. This is one of the best Chalambars.

Cheers
Allan

[kaos]

I had the 04 a week or two back and it was absolutely delicious and only really entering its window...

[Mahmoud Ali]

I probably need to take a look at my '98 Chalambar. It was big, ripe vintage and back in the day was highly touted, but apparently some producers got it wrong. Hopefully that wasn't the case with this Seppelt.

Cheers ......... Mahmoud.