

Koltz The Pagan Shiraz 2014
Style: Red Wine
Variety: Shiraz
Closure: DIAM Cork
Koltz The Pagan Shiraz 2014
Camberwell
Burke Road
Camberwell VIC 3124
Australia
Critic Score: 96 and ★★★★★
Alcohol: 15.0%
Size: 750 ml
Drink by: 2037
Description
"The Koltz wines are a sort all their own." Philip White
Koltz The Pagan Shiraz is one of my favourite wines. Winemaker Mark Day selects the best shiraz from his vineyards in the Blewitt Springs area and dries them on racks for six to seven weeks prior to crushing and fermentation. The process is similar to that used in Valpolicella to produce Amarone. The result is always spectacular - a superb full-bodied Australian Shiraz, albeit with a distinctly Italian feel.
"The really impressive part of the performance for me is how you taste this wine with your entire chemo-sensory system. I could taste it with the back of my throat, and smell it with the back of my nose. Not an uncommon thing with a single malt scotch, but this is not a monster wine, and in fact it's quite refined with the flavour coming in waves. Not shore break waves either, deep ocean waves that slowly fade to the distance minutes later. It's just so impeccably balanced that nothing stands out. It's actually a hard wine to describe well, yes it's big, and yes it's a sipping wine, but it just gently rocks you, and reminds you life is very, very good." Gavin Scarman
The shrivelled, concentrated grapes produced by the drying process yield an incredibly sumptuous and sexy shiraz that has layers and layers of rich, dark berry fruits and a wonderful silky mouthfeel and structure and balance. The more you look at the wine, the more it impresses, revealing a rich tapestry of secondary flavours – prunes, rum, raisins, dark chocolate and tar. Sensational.
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South Australia
South Australian is responsible for more than half the production of all Australian wine. It is home to more than 900 wineries across 18 wine regions. The regions are Adelaide Hills, Adelaide Plains, Barossa Valley, Clare Valley, Coonawarra, Currency Creek, Eden Valley, Kangaroo Island, Langhorne Creek, McLaren Vale, Mount Benson, Mount Gambier, Padthaway, Riverland, Robe, Southern Fleurieu, Southern Flinders Ranges and Wrattonbully.
Many of the well-known names in the South Australian wine industry established their first vineyards in the late 1830s and early 1840s. The first vines in McLaren Vale were planted at Reynella in 1839 and Penfold's established Magill Estate on the outskirts of Adelaide in 1844.
South Australia has a vast diversity in geography and climate which allows the State to be able to produce a range of grape varieties - from cool climate Riesling in the Clare and Eden Vallies to the big, full bodied Shiraz wines of the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale. Two of Australia's best-known wines, Penfolds Grange and Henschke Hill of Grace, are produced here. There is much to discover in South Australia for the wine lover.