Australian "Claret"

Yalumba The Signature is a classic Cabernet Shiraz combo and somewhere around US$50. A lot of bang for your buck there.

I’ve no idea what it’s like now, and I liked it a little more than Aussie critics, but Wynns Cab/Shiraz (with the red diagonal across it IIRC) tended to be at the lighter end of the scale for such blends. It was also a cellar defender in the sense that you’d drink it young, to avoid opening wines that needed longer, and many of these Cab/Shiraz blends are long agers. It’s also modestly priced.

It depends on your style and palate preference. I like big wines. Some of the posters above do not, so my recommendations are different. If you like them on the lighter side, you might not like this, but based upon my TNs, I would go with the Glaetzer Anaperenna, especially if you can get them with more than a decade of age. 15-20 is better. Here are two notes I wrote on the same vintage 8 years apart. In my experience, the Aussie Shiraz component really blooms starting at about 15 years of age.

  • 2006 Glaetzer Anaperenna - Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley (11/9/2010)
    Wow, this is a great, well balanced wine. Popped and poured and then tasted over about an hour during lunch. The balance created by the blend of 80% shiraz and 20% Cabernet works just right. The fruit forward flavors of the shiraz (cherry, red berry and plum) are balanced by the depth and meatyness of the cabernet. Adding to those flavors is pepper spice and a bit of vanilla. Very smooth and easy to drink with an excellent mouth feel. The wine evolved beautifully over the course of an hour as more flavors and depth appeared. If I did not have to go back to work, this would have disappeared in a heartbeat. As it was, we left half the wine in the bottle and my lunch mate brought it home to his wife to share for dinner. A one-hour decant would have been great but I expect that the half-bottle left for dinner will still be superb and have just about the right amount of air. (92 pts.)
  • 2006 Glaetzer Anaperenna - Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley (12/22/2018)
    Westchester Wine Enthusiasts early 2018 [? why I wrote this when it was late 2018 in a mystery]. Worth the wait and will get even better. If you like juicy fruit with calmed down tanins and spicy backbone, this is for you, but if you wait 5 more years I think it will be even better. (92 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

Here’s another one:

  • 2001 Parsons Flat Shiraz - Cabernet - Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Padthaway (10/5/2017)
    Another example of bad wine criticism (some by professionals and some by amateurs) who think that you should never drink Bordeaux less than 20 years old but an Aussie Shiraz from the NICU is too jammy and will never be any good. I did not try this wine as a baby, but at least one critic thought it deserved 83 points at 7 years old. At 16 years old, its is an outstanding and complex wine combining the positive components of both Cabernet and Shiraz grown in a climate conducive to growing grapes. I have found many Aussie Shiraz and Shiraz blends to be outstanding at the 15 to 25 year range.

The flavor profile of this wine mixes the back of the palate dark cherry and dark berry fruit of the shiraz with front of the palate earth and meatyness of a Cabernet. There is a bit of spice for extra balance, but it is a minor component. There is obviously some alcohol present - otherwise it would just be Welches Grape juice and you wouldn’t want to drink it - but the alcohol is not a major component of the flavor profile. (92 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

this looks like it’s probably a good deal 2019 Xanadu Cabernet Sauvignon Margaret River Australia

(I’ve not tried it, but they stand behind it and if you don’t like it, they’ll refund you. let me know if you’d like a referral code :slight_smile: )

Just as an aside, if you are ever looking for the best wines of Australia with a track record (important note) then the Langtons Classification is always a good first stop. Over the 3 levels it is the closest thing we have to the 1855 classification. View Wine Classification | Langton's Fine Wines

For the classic Shiraz/Cabernet blend or Cabernet/Shiraz - they are quite different depending on which grape is the dominant…

Gone with the bigger places as there is more chance they will be available outside AU.

Rockford Rod and Spur
Majella Malleea
Tyrrells Vat 8
Yalumba Signature (still not 100% convinced on this in the longevity stakes, up to 20 years ok after that it becomes a crapshoot IME)
Houghton Jack Mann
Penfolds Bin 389 (yeah yeah I know, but really it is great with a bit of age)
Petaluma Coonawarra
Tapanappa Whalebone
St Hugo ShirazCab (another in the 389 vein - it too, although popular, does age well)

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Xanadu make some smart wines, their Chardonnay is a very good buy.

Right at your target price.
Parker Coonawarra Estate 2016 First Growth.
Less expensive but worth a try is the 2018 65 Block.

Cheers!

https://www.parkercoonawarraestate.com.au/Wines/View-the-Range

Good to see this mentioned. It’s a different wine to Bin389 for sure, but one that’s been more to my taste.

Another one to consider are the wines of Jim Barry…

I’ve seen but not tried the fairly cheap Barry Bros. Blend.

And there’s also the Pb Shiraz Cabernet that I have neither seen nor tried.

Bin 389 is way overpriced now a days.

If I could afford cellar defenders and that price point, I would not be asking for advice.

For my palate - very much agreed.
For my palate back when the style used to appeal much more - I suspect I would still say very much agreed.

I see no value in the Penfolds range these days, which isn’t how it used to be. Indeed back in the late 1980s the Bin 2 Shiraz Mourvedre was stunning value at a mere £3 (before it moved from the Rhone bottle to the Bdx bottle), for a very decent wine (way better than it became later, even suffering the ignominy of being sealed with a plastic cork in later years)

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One word Ian ‘China’

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