shiraz – Trust The Devil You Know

Wine Review: 2014 Shiraz Cabernet, Jacob’s Creek

After seeing much praise for Jacob’s Creek on the Twitters, I decided to conduct my own taste test.

Aptly named, this Shiraz Cabernet from south eastern Australia is 66% Shiraz, 34% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 13.9% alcohol. The bottle also features a clever wine-glass shaped QR code.

Peppery plums and cedary oak, smooth finish, pleasantly soothing after a long day of work.

I would claim that Staples customers drive me to drink but the truth is that they just give me something to rant about while I’m drinking – which I would do anyway because wine is delicious.

That being said, Staples customers are doing a great job of compelling me to quit Staples, which will be happening soon enough.

Anyhoo, Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Cabernet is a fine example of Australian Wine and, with recent events in California likely to adversely affect wine supply in the coming years, now seems like a good time to explore wine from other regions.

Wine Review: 2015 California Shiraz, Bota Box

House buying is serious business, this box of wine didn’t stand a chance.

The week before last was nerve wracking with my work cohort being on vacation, but it’s not quite the same as watching my future hang in the balance while trying to get approved for a mortgage.

It’s been awhile since I bought a house and, when I sold it, I thought I would never want that kind of burden again. Of course that was just silly talk because I hadn’t yet spent two and a half years living in a 4th floor apartment with an over abundance of neighbors and a conspicuous lack of elevators.

Forty-one steps up, forty-one steps down. Forty-one steps up, forty-one steps down. Forty-one steps up, forty-one steps down. Forty-one steps up, forty-one…. you get the point.

Murphy requires many trips to the great outdoors everyday and he loves bounding up and down the stairs.

As for myself, I can do it but I wouldn’t say I love it. Incidentally, each glass of wine adds ten steps to the count. Two glasses in and I’m climbing a skyscraper. The time has come to live closer to the ground.

If you’ve ever bought a house then you know the application process requires a good bit of wine. All the hurry up and wait would drive anyone to drink.

This 2015 Shiraz from Bota Box is sassy and bold, especially for boxed wine which tends to be more on the mild side. There’s nothing toned down about this Shiraz, it’s big and beautiful. Cherry and black pepper, orange peel and blackberry plus 13.5% alcohol to calm an anxious mind.

Yummy.

Effective.

Wine Review: 2015 Shiraz, [yellow tail]

I may have gotten a little carried away with the [ yellow tail ] wine this week.

In my defense, it was on sale [ buy one at $6.99 and get the 2nd one for $4.99 ].

I mean, hey, what’s a gal to do?

Unlike Sweet Red Roo, the Shiraz has a cork and a vintage.

We had it with baked salmon and vegetables but then we were still hungry so the rest of the bottle disappeared along with a bag of blue corn tortilla chips and salsa.

Xavier and I don’t own a dining room table so we eat at the coffee table. When the food appears so do the animals. The funny thing is that the dog wants the broccoli and the cat wants the wine. Neither of them is very concerned about the baked salmon.

For those of you who aren’t aware, Shiraz and Syrah are made from the exact same grape.

So why the different names?

Despite being made from the same grape, the final product is very different. Shiraz and Syrah have distinctly different flavors that are accounted for by a wide variety of climate and soil conditions along with different fermentation processes.

Syrah often comes from France and is considered to be more refined and sophisticated while Shiraz comes from everywhere else and is generally thought of as being more crass.

Crass, that was Xavier’s word.

“You mean it swears in public?”, I asked.

“I mean it hits the top of my mouth like a mushroom cloud”, he replied.

Well, that’s one way to put it.

This wine does open with an upper cut to the upper pallet but then diffuses to a softer finish.

Considering it was on sale for $4.99, I say it’s not bad.

Is it exceptional? No, but it’s alright and didn’t give me a headache. I’d drink it again.