Had dinner in Bunbury Saturday night at a small cafe conveniently place right next door to a liquor store. I did not want to waste any of my CD spoils on the group of no-hopers (Ben Ean Moselle and cheap Oz Rose were the order of the night, bloody academics) present so bought a 2001 Ingoldby Shiraz at said liquor store. What has this to do with Taylors, read on.
I have to tell you the winemaker must have discovered the secret formula for supersaturating red wine with histamines as my nose was blocking with the first glass and totally chockers with the second. Well the meal was so slow coming the bottle of Ingoldby was gone already. Being thirsty still and not wanting to blow my sinuses out the front of my face I decided to Try a Taylors Clare Valley Shiraz 2001.
We had been sharing the wine with the wine naive no-hoper (and I use this as a term of endearment dear reader) opposite, and when I poured him a glass of the Taylors he immediately pronounced it to be by far superior to the Ingoldby. Hmmmm! Even through my by now thoroughly blocked nose I could detect TCA. Give the glass to the wife to check with immediate confirmation. Being the gentleman that I am I left the wife to explain to the no-hoper why I was tipping "perfectly excellent" wine into the flower arrangement and taking the bottle outside.
The staff at the Liquor Store, Condellos, for those of you in Bunbury were surprisingly well educated and immediately offered to exchange the bottle without checking the veracity of my story. However as I left the store one did stick his inquisitive beak above the bottle and was then heard to make religious pronouncements.
On tasting wine from the second bottle the no-hoper immediately claimed that this was far superior to the first. I did not have the heart to inform him that it was also crap, having so much sulfur initially it made my eyes water. Fortunately this mostly blew off, and as it went so well with the crappy food I did not return it.
Sometimes I think ignorance would be bliss.