The Great Shiraz Challenge

[Nick]

Well OK, if no-one else is going to start this thread I might as well.

My first one of these events, and after a relatively heavy Saturday night, the first few tastes were fairly heavy going. I have never had a blacker tongue, or teeth, and would you believe I ran into my dentist right at the end of the day. Fortunately her teeth looked about as bad as mine, so all's well.

Anyway, my top 6 ended up:
1. 2002 Mitchelton Print Shiraz
2. 200? Gibson Old Vine Shiraz
3. 2004 Turkey Flat Shiraz
4. 2004 Marius Symphony Shiraz
5. 2004 Torbreck The Struie Shiraz
6. 2004 Kalleske Greenock Shiraz

Very difficult to get accurate and effective tasting notes when you're tasting that many wines, so general impressions were:

I still can't get my head around Coonawarra Shiraz. With the exception of the Majella (which almost made it to top 6), the remaining Coonawarras just didn't have the generosity of fruit and came off a little weedy and/or flat.

Top value pick probably goes to 2003 Hugo Shiraz. I reckon this is a belter at $16 or $17 cellar door. Beautiful ripe fruit, nicely handled oak, drinking smoothly at present.

My palate's tolerance for oak goes down the more Shiraz I drink. By the end of the day I'd smell something like the Hardy's Tintara and know I wasn't going to love it before it even hit my tongue.

There's probably a lot more specific memories floating around somewhere in my head, but that'll do for now.

As an interesting sidetrack, how much alcohol can you absorb through the mouth? According to my tasting sheet I tasted and spat 66 wines, then drove home. About half way home, realised that if I'd only swallowed 10ml of each wine then I'd almost consumed a bottle! Any thoughts or evidence?

Cheers
Nick

[Alex F]

I went to the Edinburgh's 200 Shiraz Challenge Sunday & caught up with Gavin, quite a few of the Blacktongues (who actually decided to show up this week) and a couple of lurkers from here too.

My votes for the day went to (in order):

1. 2004 Turkey Flat
2. 2004 Gibson Old Vine
3. 2004 Kalleske Greenock
4. 2004 Marius Simpatico
5. 2002 Majella
6. 2004 Schild Estate Barossa

From what I heard my top three were in quite a lot of other peoples votes too - it will be interesting to find out the final results.

Cheers,
Ian

[Ian S]

As an interesting sidetrack, how much alcohol can you absorb through the mouth? According to my tasting sheet I tasted and spat 66 wines, then drove home. About half way home, realised that if I'd only swallowed 10ml of each wine then I'd almost consumed a bottle! Any thoughts or evidence?

Cheers
Nick

No evidence, but there always used to be a bit of debate about if you got a breathalyser test positive, whether it would be beneficial to ask for a blood test (you used to be able to ask for one of these in UK). I suspect your breath might show a higher reading than your blood in that situation.

regards

Ian

[Alex F]

At the good food and wine show I tasted a lot of wines, swallowed 4 tasting glasses worth, went to the breathalyser place an hour later and read 0. Now I wonder whether that was an accurate read... or maybe my breath just smelt bad.

[Jordan]

A great day had and a fantastic opportunity to try before I buy. Only problem is, I didn't realise how much I now want to buy.

1. Coriole Lloyd Reserve 2004
2. Turkey Flat 2004
3. Marius Symphony 2004
4. Gibson 2004
5. Kalleske 2004
6. Two Hands Lily's Garden

Great Value Wine: Longhop 2004 @ $13

[Nick]

Sorry Ian, hadn't noticed your post on the other thread.

Reading other people's votes I've just realised there's one problem with the format of the day - so much to taste, so little time. I didn't get to Schild or Longhop, and they'd run out of the Lloyd by the time I got to Coriole. I guess there's always next year...

I was thinking while I was tasting that it was a shame that the spread was so heavily weighted South Australian. I know we make great Shiraz over here and all, but I got to the point at one stage where I was looking for anything but another big in-your-face McLaren Vale Shiraz.

Cheers
Nick

[caper]

was the Giaconda Warner Vineyards shiraz in this tasting? Surely one of the greatest wines made in Australia.

[n4sir]

For those of you who are interested, the official final results of the day's voting:

Best Shiraz over $25:

1st: 2004 Kalleske Greenock - $40.00
2nd: 2004 Gibson Old Vine - $77.00
3rd: 2001 Classic McLaren La Testa - $43.00
4th: 2004 Battle of Bosworth White Boar - $37.00
5th: 2004 Two Hands Lily's Garden - $47.00
6th: 2000 Woodstock The Stocks - $40.00

Best Shiraz under $25.00

1st: 2004 Tiltili - $17.00
2nd: 2004 Beresford - $15.00
3rd: 2004 Wicks Estate - $16.00
4th: 2003 Morgan Simpson - $15.00
5th: 2004 Petaringa Undercover - $17.00
6th: 2005 Mr. Riggs The Gaffer - $17.00

Cheers,
Ian

[rednut]

As an interesting sidetrack, how much alcohol can you absorb through the mouth? According to my tasting sheet I tasted and spat 66 wines, then drove home. About half way home, realised that if I'd only swallowed 10ml of each wine then I'd almost consumed a bottle! Any thoughts or evidence?

Cheers
Nick

No evidence, but there always used to be a bit of debate about if you got a breathalyser test positive, whether it would be beneficial to ask for a blood test (you used to be able to ask for one of these in UK). I suspect your breath might show a higher reading than your blood in that situation.

regards

Ian

As a person in this line of work I can only say that to my knowledge you would absorb some alcohol through your mouth particularly under your tongue but as it is in and out fairly quickly not a lot has time to enter the blood stream.
I you were to keep it in your mouth for a longer period of time well thats a different story I would suppose.

Interesting site on alcohol absorption:

http://www.science.org.au/nova/052/052key.htm

http://www.arrivealive.co.za/medical.as ... absorbtion

As for the blood test after every person is subjected to a breath analysis they are given the option to a blood test.
I am yet to see one come back lower than the breath test result though. .

[griff]

Seem to remember a reference to absorbing about 10% of the alcohol in the mouth but is variable. Wish I could remember where I read that.

Got to remember buccal absorption is a valid absorption method (think chewing tobacco) and ethanol is quite a small molecule and can dissolve in water and in fat (both important for buccal/oral obsorption). Lastly, the amount of time in the mouth is quite important.

cheers

Carl