TN: Grant Burge Filsell Shiraz 2010

[Waiters Friend]

Purple / red in colour - starting to lighten a little.

This is at a point where there's some primary fruit (dark plums, red and blue berries) alongside some developed, earthy notes, all propped up by a little spice and cedary oak. The palate echoes this, along with integrated tannins, soft acid, and just a hint of dark chocolate. Reasonably long finish.

This needed an hour in the decanter to open up. When I first bought Filsells in the mid 1990s, they were the baby brother to the Meschach, and I don't recall there being any other Shiraz in their portfolio - so this was the 'early drinking' wine. The range has expanded over the years, as (presumably) new plantings have come online, and this is being promoted as "Old Vine" and presumably has some expectations of ageing well. I don't have sufficient experience with older models of this wine to determine whether it's as good as it is going to get right now, or has capacity to improve further with age.

Cheers
Allan