Today I am tasting the 2008 Gumdale Shiraz by Wakley Vintners from Southeastern Australia. I’ve recently tried the 2006 Gumdale Shiraz and the 2007 Gumdale Shiraz. The 2006 was a very good wine. This value wine (under $7) is cleanly packaged and has a plastic cork. I dislike real cork, do you? Now if they could just start using screw tops that would be even better.
Color
As with most Shiraz wines, this is a dark purple wine. It doesn’t really have the black color of some top notch red wines.
Aroma
Beautiful nose of dark fruit and herbs. There is black currant and black pepper present along with some bell pepper. Very nice. Dark fruits dominate, but the green vegetables are there too.
Flavor
On the attack there are some sweet dark fruits present. Blackberries and black currant quickly fade away and the mid-palate shows a little black cherries with a lot of black pepper. The finish is long and dominated by the pepper. I love the spice that good shiraz has but this wine seems to be almost one dimensional. This wine shows almost no tannins. So even though it is a 2008 I recommend drinking it now.
Rating
The 2008 Gumdale Shiraz is a good wine. My only complaint is that is rather limited in the number of flavors present. I rate it 87 points. Overall, I say look for the 2006 vintage.
