With tonight's dinner of grilled steaks, we opened a bottle recently
purchased:

2004 Tyrell's Vat 8 Cabernet-Shiraz (Hunter Valley, Mudgee)
nose: pencil lead, cedar, black cherries, oak
palate: smooth tannins, medium-full body, long finish

Still quite primary, though also feeling quite mature, I'd have probably
guessed that this was a mature CalCab had I been tasting it blind.
Quite restrained and very appealing with the steaks, it had little
discernible Syrah character that I could pick up, despite being 87%
Syrah. For the NZD 13 we paid for this wine locally, quite the QPR
purchase.

Mark Lipton

On Mar 11, 2:13*am, Mark Lipton > wrote:
> With tonight's dinner of grilled steaks, we opened a bottle recently
> purchased:
>
> 2004 Tyrell's Vat 8 Cabernet-Shiraz (Hunter Valley, Mudgee)
> nose: pencil lead, cedar, black cherries, oak
> palate: smooth tannins, medium-full body, long finish
>
> Still quite primary, though also feeling quite mature, I'd have probably
> guessed that this was a mature CalCab had I been tasting it blind.
> Quite restrained and very appealing with the steaks, it had little
> discernible Syrah character that I could pick up, despite being 87%
> Syrah. *For the NZD 13 we paid for this wine locally, quite the QPR
> purchase.
>
> Mark Lipton

Sounds like a great buy. Still in Kiwi land I see. I assume this one
is not available in the US.

lleichtman wrote:

> Sounds like a great buy. Still in Kiwi land I see. I assume this one
> is not available in the US.

Yes, we'll be here for another month. Dunno about US availability on
this one, but I'll note here that we purchased the wine at a very good
wine retailer in Christchurch. Decant is a retailer/deli run by David
Graham, who is passionate and knowledgeable about wine. Much of his
selection is French (he's got a great selection from the Arbois, of all
things!) but his NZ and Oz selections cater to a Europhilic palate such
as wine.

Mark Lipton