Another wine from the barrel room. This time we ordered Barrel Monkeys, which is a 2005 Austrailian Shiraz. The wine comes from Redheads Studio, a Mclaren Vale Studio Winery. We purchased this wine for $35 and it retails online for $16.
As you have noticed, my wine reviews are really elementary. I am a novice. I figure that the best way to learn tho, is to try and to document. I one time took a trip to Napa, and learned a couple things that are my “go to” commentary. Who knows how accurate I am.
So with this wine, we thought it tasted light and fruity. I thought it had a spicy/peppery smell. When I mentioned that to LAL, she said “it always just smells like alcohol to me.”
Another item of note, this bottle had a twist off cap.
We would order this again, but we did not give it a rating (out of forgetfulness, not out of “off the charts”)
The winery’s website was underconstruction when I went there, but here is a collection of tidbits found out there on the internet:
From The Wine Buyer:
Englishman Tony Laithwaite (you could call him the British equivalent of Dan Philips) bought an old bar called Red Heads in McLaren Vale, Australia and renamed it Red Heads Studio. He outfitted it with winemaking equipment and invited young, fresh out of college winemakers to try their hand at making small batches of wine with grapes that are usually very ripe from various sources in the region. The attraction is that these new winemakers usual starting jobs are working in wineries as “Barrel Monkeys” whose job is to move hoses and barrels around in a winery. The Studio gives them the opportunity to make wine which is what they really went to school for! This is one of those wines, which also has a completely irreverent label sort of explaining the whole Barrel Monkey job. We can only say that these Barrel Monkeys produced a wine that fans of in your face fruit bombs will enjoy!
Rating
This dark, almost opaque colored wine has nice aromas of blackberry and licorice. The juicy, full-throttle flavors hold true to the nose with blackberry, espresso, licorice and a hint of alcohol heat and pepper on the medium length finish. Wine Buyer 90 Points
Country: AUSTRALIA
Region: SOUTH AUSTRALIA
Sub-Region: FLEURIEU
Appellation: MCLAREN VALE
Grape Varietal: SYRAH
Type: Still wine
From The Wine Spectator:
Raw-edged, with grippy tannins against ripe, red berry and plum flavors, lingering on the firm finish. Needs time to flesh out. Best after 2009. 5,000 cases made. 87 points
