Excelsior 2009 Shiraz

Abstract:

The back label from this South African Shiraz promises a vintage grown on the former grounds of champion thoroughbred horses, carefully harvested by the De Wets family since 1697.  For just $10.99, you can experience a proud winemaking tradition and enjoy

"bold plum, chocolate and spicy aromas, followed by a pallet bursting with cherry and smoked meat flavours.  This wine is the perfect match for barbequed meat, or strongly flavored Mediterranean dishes."

Finding This Wine:

I chose this wine because I needed to drink something during workday hours and didn't have a bottle opener on hand.  I found this 2009 Shiraz at my local small town package store, where it was overpriced by at least two dollars but just expensive enough to make their debit card minimum purchase requirement. 

Tasting Notes:

This wine presents as uniformly and deeply red, with no evidence of whiteness.  Fans of racial purity would agree that this wine exhibits no trace of grape miscegenation.  The wine was not allowed to breathe deeply, and at first sniff emitted charming oak and cherry notes reminicint of an upscale furniture store.  Sippage gave first a tingly alcohol feeling, followed by the unmistakably tart note of diesel fuel additive.  Finally, the wine finishes with the promised terrior du manure of the soil of champion horses - musky, grassy, and pleasantly poopy. 

Pairs well with:

This wine is meant to be consumed alone.  Sharing with friends or family is for another wine. We did
not test this wine with any skewered meats and strongly or weakly flavored Mediterranean foods. 

Overall Score: 3 stars

PROS:

• Easy to open and close, no stuffing unwieldy plastic cork into bottle opening afterwards
• Debit card ready-purchasing power
• Great random backstory on the label about the champion horses-cum-vinyard soil

CONS

• A more sophisticated palette would miss the grass and poop notes
• Discerning readers of the label might be put off by the notion that the De Wets have been at this since 1697, in a country whose economy was built and sustained on slave labor and legally enforced racism until very recently
• Typical sinus pain the following morning