Barossa Shiraz Makes a Name for Itself

By Nia Lawrence


Choosing among the different varieties of wine can be quite daunting for the uneducated. How would you know if an Elderton Shiraz is the best drink to get for your friend's outdoor barbeque instead of a Merlot? They all seem to taste the same to you, but apparently some wines are better complements to certain food than others.

Wine and food pairing can be quite an overwhelming phenomenon if you go to the nitty-gritty details of the art. In fact, some people would leave it to experts called the sommeliers, who usually are hired by fine-dining restaurants who take pride in their wine collection. These sommeliers are there to recommend to the diners which wine selection would work best with the particular food you ordered. But the question is how do they do it? The complexities of the process are endless, but you can simplify it if it's all a matter of bringing a good wine bottle to your friend's table. As long as you have an idea of the basics of wine tasting, you will be able to get some pretty good matches.

So what makes the Shiraz Barossa collection a distinguished variety in all of Australia and the world? For one, it makes use of quality Shiraz vineyards that have been thriving since the 1800s. When all of the wine regions in Australia were wiped out due to phylloxera infestation, only the Barossa valley was exempt from this calamity due to their strict quarantine regulations. Until now, the Shiraz variant that is being produced by this wine country, to make the distinctive flavors of a full-bodied red rich in chocolate and spices, still comes from those 200-year old vines. Some of the more famous Shiraz varieties are the Peter Lehmann Shiraz wines. They are full-bodied with distinctive flavors of chocolate, plum, berry and rich spices, the particular flavor depending on the year it was produced.

But, then, it doesn't stop here, especially if you feel you know more about wine than just weight. If you think you have your skill on wine-tasting down pat, why not consider expanding your considerations. Sometimes wines are paired with food according to contrasting or complementing textures and flavors. This is when the sugar, tannin and acidity levels come into play. Whether you'd prefer to contrast or complement the wine to the food would really depend on you. Some experts prefer to complement, so that a robust dish like a duck would work well with something full-bodied like a Peter Lehmann Shiraz. Others would prefer to get a contrasting combination of food and wine, to allow one to partly cut off the exaggerated flavors of the other. The tartness of cheese can be slightly muted with a sweet wine choice.

Now that you know the basics of wine tasting, why not go ahead and enjoy a week of revelry during that vintage festival? This is the best time to try lots of varieties of wine to improve your skill. You will learn to better appreciate wine and all of its variants when you know exactly what you are looking for.




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