Weekly Winedown #35 – Kooliburra Shiraz Cabernet

Welcome to the Weekly Winedown. Each week I selflessly drink wine for you and offer a review.
Please don’t expect anything professional, I consume a lot of wine but I’m no pro.

The only real ‘rule’ I’m putting in place is that the wine is to be under £8 a bottle. #keepitclassy

I know I’ve mentioned a few times but I’ve been so slack.
My first excuse was Christmas, then post Christmas, then planning a Secret Wedding (did I tell you I got married?).
Then came the honeymoon period, which I still seem to be in.

So that’s a quarter of the year done and dusted. How time flies!

I fully intend to get motivated and get back on it…On Monday.

In the meantime, this weeks Winedown has been guest written by a guest.
Let’s all say hello to David who enjoyed Kooliburra Shiraz Cabernet from South Africa (and Aldi).

The Label

From the outside, the bottle looks clean and elegant. No fancy pictures or over dramatic font on the label. The black label does however have the Kooliburra trade mark lizard in purple, hence my son’s name of “Purple Lizard” for this wine.

The Blurb

“This deeply coloured wine mixes flavours of ripe dark berry fruits with subtle spice and mint. Full bodied and richly textured, it displays an intensity of red berry, blackcurrant and plum flavours, leading to notes of black olives, cloves and spice. The finish lingers with soft ripe tannins making it a perfect match to full flavoured meat dishes”. 

 

The tasting notes on the reverse promise “dark berry fruits with subtle spice and mint”, and comment on a finish lingering with “soft ripe tannins”. I’m not expecting anything particularly subtle, or hugely outstanding, bearing in mind the price range of this wine.

 It has a big nose, loads of spice and oak. Definitely no trace of subtlety there. Its setting its stall out and saying, “Here I am, big, bold and brassy, take me as you find me.”

There is a lot of luscious ripe fruit flavours on first sipping, note, this isnt a wine for quaffing…its too big for that, but they don’t linger long, quickly giving way to a heavy oak which does linger, leaving tannins on your tongue. Theres almost a saltiness to the spiciness too. This is feeling like a wine to eat with, whether its a few cheese and biscuits type nibble, or a full blown roast dinner. Defintiely not a wine to just savour on its own, the big flavours need something to balance them.

I’ve been pairing it with some cold roast gammon and a vintage cheddar, and it definitely suits the gammon, the saltiness of the meat softening the in your face flavours. The cheese was pleasant, but tended to bring out too much of the underlying acidity of the fruitiness.

In conclusion, its a very pleasant wine, that with the right nibbles is proving very easy to drink. It would suit a relaxing movie evening, or a the type of dinner where you dont have to show off, and the conversation is more important than the food and drink. For £3.99 this is a steal, get some.

Name – Kooliburra Shiraz Cabernet
Price – £3.99
Colour – Red.
Smell – Big – spicey and oaky.
Taste – Full, fruity with a spiced finish.
Goes well with – Gammon.
Overall score – 4/5

Well, this is awkward. He’s better at this than me!
I was hoping to get a bottle of this for myself to see what I thought but there was none in stock.
Darn you Aldi!