Konzelmann Estate Winery 2006 Shiraz

Click here to read the original review from April 2008

(Re-Tasted December 2013) ... In 2006 Konzelmann made a lovely, juicy, peppery, black cherry and spicy Shiraz for a mere $12.95 ... it's the kind of wine that you would drink by the gallon and never look back at.  Well, that is not my way of doing things, I drank a few but held back a couple of bottles to see what would happen to a $12.95 Shiraz from a vintage like 2006.  I have to say that if the nose was any indication of what I was going to find on the palate then I should have stopped immediately, it was pretty stinky right from the get go; but thankfully I'm a professional and have encountered off aromas but with good palate results, and this wine possessed that quality:  the palate kept me coming back sip after sip, I just didn't breathe in when my nose was in the glass.  This wine is a perfect example of the smell taking you part of the way there, but the palate taking you home.  Nose was overly-earthy with elements of pepper corn, while the palate was pleasantly raspberry, white  pepper with some smoky notes.  As the wine sat in the glass the nose rarely got any better than what it started out as, but the palate finishes with a dried raspberry smokiness that is quite appealing ... pretty good for a 2006 - drink up now.

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Konzelmann Estate Winery 2006 Red Moose

Found March 2012

I currently have two bottles of this wine in my cellar (well, one less now) and obviously I have tried it in the past, or it would`t be there, but it seems I have never written a single word about it ... and that surprises me - I guess the review got lost in the wash, or my dog ate it, or I left it in my other pants, or whatever other excuse I can give you as to why I have no record of trying this wine in the past (and writing about it).  But tonight I found a bottle in a box of aging wines and decided it was time to give it a try.  A few things scared me about trying this wine:  1) the silly label - critter labels are usually gimmicky and this one even more so.  2) the vintage date - 2006 was not the greatest of vintages in Ontario, in fact it might be one of our roughest, and a 6 year old wine from that vintage might be a little dodgy.  3) the grape variety - Zweigelt, barrel aged (as this was is) or not is an Austrian cross of Lemberger and St. Laurent that is Austria`s most famous red, but grown sparsely here in Ontario; and most versions I have tried have been meant to consume young ... so what was I thinking aging this wine???  Well it`s a good thing I did because this was one delicious wine.  The nose was of smoked-cranberry, white pepper and spiced-black cherry which continued to offer pure aromatic pleasure through its entire time in the glass.  The flavours yielded even more enjoyment: at first there were strawberry-cranberry notes with hints of vanilla and caramel.  But given some time it changed into something even better, there was more to find:  sweet dried fruit notes, like craisins (cranberry-raisins), vanilla smoke and then later the whole glass succumbed to black cherry.  A nice smoothness through the mouth led to a wonderful tasty smoky-black cherry finish with a sort of toasty-ash linger.  This one was a real find.  Lost & Found Rating:  True Treasure

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