What makes a good wine?
There are many characteristics , and flavours which make up a wine's taste. The same grape varietal grown in a different part of the world will exhibit different characteristics, and their flavours could also be worlds apart. The same grape grown in the same vineyard can change characteristics from year to year depending on thw climate, temperature and rainfall patterns over each season.
How good a wine can be measured on many levels, but what ultimately makes a wine good or not is whether you, yourself, enjoyed drinking it. That is because we all enjoy the same thing differently, and have certain taste preferences.
To us, a good wine is something Mrs MJ and I both enjoy together. If be both enjoy the wine, then we have made a good purchase. If only one of us dislikes the wine, and the other likes it, then it wasn't bad, it just wasn't good for both of us to enjoy, and if neither of us enjoy it, then it is a bad wine. Our neighbors may enjoy it, and so it may be a good wine in their opinion.
That's the way wine tasting works; It's a personal journey through flavours you like and dislike, on the quest to find a wine which gives you maximum taste enjoyment.
Brini Estate Blewitt Springs Shriaz
We love a good Shiraz and, to us, South Australia has some of the best examples we've found. This bottle of 2014 Shiraz out of McLaren Vale is yet another example of why the region is so highly regarded for its wine.
This one drew quite a few mixed reviews on Vivino, but still scores quite highly, which means most people find it good.
We really liked thw bold fruitiness of it, with strong plum and blackcurrent flavour throughout the palate, and well integrated oaky tannins. Mrs MJ found it a little peppery, but tolerable for her, but I quite liked the added kick. Overall the spicy flavours did not overpower the sweet fruits, and the wine went down very smoothly. The second glass mellowed out a little more, amd the pepper notes faded into the background, with the sweet fruits and slight oakiness holding steady.
This one had some good life in it, and the second glass was by far our best, so know we know to give it a little breathing space before we dive into it. A well deserverd 4 out of 5 was our rating for this vintage, which is the same as we scores the 2010 Brini Sebastian Shiraz, which was a fair bit more expensive.
A good, inexpensive wine. Just how we like it!
Cheers!
