Fire Up the Barbee, Pour this Wine

Fast facts:

• 2021 Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve Shiraz, Barossa Valley, Australia ($7.99 @ Trader Joe’s, California)

   

While we felt compelled to give a nod to the Aussie origin of this wine in this subject line, perhaps we should have said “fire up the barbee, Barbie” given all the hype the latter is creating in the film world this summer.

Summer is the season of the grill.  And IMHO, there are two grapes especially well-suited to foods prepared over an open fire: Syrah and Zinfandel. We actually had a Zin teed up for this week’s post, but it (the Renwood Zinfandel, Amador County, also from Trader Joe’s) failed the taste test by tasting too fake and full of flavor additives.  So we turned out attention to this Syrah we had “waiting in the wings”…

The Syrah grape is responsible for some of the most sought after bottlings in the world. In the Rhone Valley of France, it is the grape behind famous bottlings by E. Guigal and M. Chapoutier. In the new world, it underpins Penfold’s Grange, widely acknowledged as Australia’s greatest and most famous wine. Although the latter is bottled as Shiraz. In both cases, these wines can fetch hundreds -if not thousands – of dollars per bottle.

Shiraz is genetically identical to Syrah, and Australia can be credited with putting the Shiraz name squarely upon the world wine stage. Though genetically identical, the stylistic differences between Shiraz and Syrah are usually pronounced. Shiraz is the most widely planted red wine grape variety “down under” and plays a starring role in some of its most coveted bottlings. So I was pleasantly surprised to see an Australian Shiraz from the Barossa Valley in the Trader Joe’s Petit Reserve line up, to say the least. And at $7.99 no less.

It didn’t disappoint.

Tasting Notes:

Pours an intense come hither purple.  Red berries, tobacco and leather on the nose.  A “fruit bomb”with ripe flavors of cherry, dark fruit, red appple and a bit of eucalyptus.  Finishes with notes of chocolate, cinnamon and earthiness.  Did we say pair it with barbecue?

 

Stay cool people.

Need More Wine Picks from Trader Joe’s – or Costco?

If your search for this wine lands you in Trader Joe’s, take along our handy Lucky 13 list of TJ’s wine here.

And if your wine shopping excursions land you in Costco, prepare by grazing our most recent reviews of Costco wines here in our Lucky 13 list.

Happy hunting.

Cheers!