TN: 96 Rosemount Estate Shiraz Diamond Label!!!

WINE TALK
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  • 1996 Rosemount Estate Shiraz Diamond - Australia, South Eastern (12/22/2011)
    So found this at a friends house. Hey I remember these wines! I said we needed to pop it. This bottle has been sitting around since release. Not consistently stored. No doubt saw some time in a hot SoCal garage too. This would have been a max $5 back in '97. Considering that, this wine should come in at near 100 pts. Labeled at 13%. After carefully taking the cork out we poured some glasses and wow. Very nice big red fruits on the nose. Smells so fresh. More of the same on the palate. Based on the color and the just emerging secondary qualities, I would have thought this closer to 7-9 years old. Very tasty. I know we had this in the house on occasion back in the 90s and I know I never enjoyed a bottle this much. Should have socked away some bottles. (92 pts.)

Posted from CellarTracker

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Fascinating, and I’m not being sarcastic (that was for Eric LeVine). That’s mighty praise from you, and to think you could have stocked up at $5/bottle back in the day…d’oh!

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Wine Spectator said in their initial review these could go 10 years so I tucked a few away as an experiment. Tasted one a few years ago and it was pretty good, showing what I would call a more French Syrah character. I have one left and keep thinking it would make a great mystery wine some night, but have never dared to do it. Maybe I’ll pop it tonight.

What do you recommend: decant or audouze??? [rofl.gif]

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I always remember these as being very good value for money, and the '96 is a very good vintage, one of balance and long life…

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I was moving my wine from the ‘old’ wine cellar to the new when I uncovered many old Oz Shiraz like this Rosemount Diamond Label, among others. They aged very well, and certainly better than expected. They were no longer fruit bombs, and they developed some secondary flavors.

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These were an old staple back in college. And in the day an effective LPR for the girl who’s now my wife [cheers.gif]

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Very hard to make a bad 1996 in Oz.

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Nowadays, with mission accomplished, have you retreated to QPR’s?

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This has to be massive production so I would assume there will be some bottle variation. My friend has a few more bottles, including a Mag IIRC so hopefully he’ll share them with me.

I don’t really follow Aussie wines but does anybody know if this is still made in the same style? I will grab one next time I am at the super market. What are the recent vintages that would be similar to '96? Interesting how the jammy qualities turned into pretty red fruit.

Jason

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I wouldn’t assume all that much bottle variation other than what might be due to storage issues. I also kept a few of those wines specifically to pull them out after 10 and 15 years in blind tastings. The Diamond Labels have been very good, other inexpensive Austrailian wines not so much. And if you were buying those at $5, you had a great deal! We were paying $8 or $9!

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Ouch. The current release is only $7 and can probably be found for 6. We are buying mags of it in the mid 90s for $10.

J

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This is not much of a surprise to me. I bought tons of aussie wines when I first got into wine, and we occasionally pull a cork. Most of our is from '01 and '02, but we do have a few older ones. I bought some 2000 St. Henri Shiraz from Garagiste that is just killer right now.

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Man you know what, for some reason I have that $9 in my head but it can’t be cheaper now than it was then and I know I bought some at PJs and it’s only 7.99 there now. I’m going to look at the bottles when I get back to NY. Whatever I paid, it’s a vastly better deal than some of the other stinkers I’ve picked up over the years.

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I still have 2 bottles of the '98 left that I have put away intentionally to see how they age. Gonna pop them at 15 and 20yrs old and see what’s what.

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Sounds like fun…wish I had a few left…the mid to late rosemount shiraz was maybe the best qpr wine ever imo.

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The first wine I ever bought to impress as girl that would turn out to be my wife of ten years.

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Mark - I’m opening one next year from 1997. And after checking it turns out I paid $8.99 for it so it better be good because I already got screwed on the pricing!