2023 Khun Shiraz by Mahmood Fazal - PYRENEES, VIC. 750ml
“I wanted to dial everything up with this wine,” says Fazal. “Tannin, concentration, the lot. So, I picked the grapes later than most people would, kept the wine on skins for longer, in barrel a bit longer. It’s the opposite of what’s the trend with shiraz these days.”
Despite his best efforts, Fazal couldn’t escape the underlying coolness of the vineyard site and the coolness of the 2023 vintage (neither would he want to, of course). Yes, his shiraz is a fabulously deep and dense shade of purple as you swirl it in the glass, and yes, there’s plenty of substance, of black-cherry liquorice flavours – and plenty of the long, tangy, “amped-up” tannins he was chasing. But there’s also an unmistakable taste of time and place in the wine, there, in its hints of – yes! – dried blood on dusty earth, and a faint echo of gum-leaf litter as the wine fades slowly on the tongue.
Words by Max Allen
