Wine review: Ravenswood 2005 Shiraz

Source: Flickr

Source: Flickr

Rating

Disagree

Winery

Ravenswood

Vintage

2005

Grape

Shiraz

Where

South Eastern, Australia

Price

$11.00

Buy at

Whole Foods

This wine is good for...
a dinner party
weekend fun
relaxing at home

Jon says... Don't Buy

This is an interesting bottle to write about, but not to drink. Ravenswood saw the huge surge in the popularity of Australian wines, so they decided to get in on the action. They bought vineyards in South Eastern Australia, home of the Barossa Valley and Coonawarra. South Eastern Australia is the ideal place to grow shiraz, since it has a temperate climate and awesome sun exposure for the heat-loving shiraz grapes. If you look closely, Ravenswood replaced the 3 circling ravens in their logo with 3 circling kangaroos. Great advertising trick!

Problem is, the wine is boring. Certainly not wimpy, but boring. It’s rich with red fruit flavors, but it just doesn’t excite me. When I have a Ravenswood zin, it’s a unique and tasty experience. This shiraz is very similar to most of the other Australian shirazes. I was hoping that Ravenswood would use their talent to take Australian shiraz to the next level, but instead they just copied off of everyone else. It’s a shame.

Ted says... Well Priced

Australia is known for their Shiraz (the actual grape is Syrah but the Aussies refer to it as Shiraz) and this is one great example. Ravenswood claims to make “no wimpy wines” and this is no wimpy wine. There is nice dark fruit on the nose with a touch of spice. The wine is medium bodied and finishes with some lingering tannins further highlighting the spice in the wine. I drank this wine with some steak but the peppery steak overly exaggerated the spice in this wine. It went much better with the chocolate chip cookie for dessert :)