Wine Review - Nederburg Winemaster's Reserve Shiraz: Tart AND Tasty Shiraz

We were provided this wine from Nederburg Wines and it was a late addition to a Spinach and Cheese Ravoli with Tomato Sauce menu.  Once opened it smelled surprisingly (well not entirely surprising) like South African Pinotage.  The coffee and chocolate notes were front and centre on the nose but funnily enough it disappeared once the wine had been opened for a while.

The wine is dark and it has a real thickness in a glass.  It looks like Shiraz if you can put it that way but it definitely shows long, slow legs when you swirl it.  We'll call it typical but that is really just to give it a description.  Overall...we'll say, it is crimson as expected.

Once the Pinotage notes faded the blackberries and cherries came through and it had more of that Shiraz nose we would expect from the Australian version.  That is a good thing on the nose.  The website mentions subtle vanilla but it's more woody than vanilla.

The blackberries still hang around on the flavours maybe with a little more of that cocoa but once you taste this wine it diverges from the more residual sugar version from Oz.  This one has a little of that sugar on the finish but the tartness and dryness are more pronounced. The tannins in the wine are pretty strong at first but once you get over the almost 15% alcohol things kind of even out.  That tartness becomes an asset to add a little body to the wine and the finish is really pleasant.  Not too shabby.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Very dark wine and what one would expect from a Shiraz...call it crimson.	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Starts with the coffee and cocoa that we would expect from Pinotage but that gives way to blackberry and cherries as the predominant smells with a touch of wood not necessarily vanilla.	4.0
Taste (0-10)	Blackberries and maybe a little cocoa flow through a tart and tannic wine with a nice finish.  Not too thin and that helps and not too hot for almost 15% alcohol.	7.5
	Total:	15.5 / 20 (77.5%)

Here's the kicker, this wine retails for $13 locally and that is a win!  Great QPR on this one and makes it a nice one to bring to a holiday get together.  This one is a good buy for sure.

Keep on tasting!

Chris & Shannon