Keeping with the value theme, this wine is a strong contender for 'value wine of the year' honors. Unlike previous vintages where the Stump Jump was more of a Cotes-du-Rhone style blend, the '08 is 100% Shiraz from various parcels in the McLaren Vale appellation. The wine was fermented in open-topped vats and then basket-pressed to seasoned French and American oak barriques, where it aged for about ten months before bottling.
This wine has a deep, garnet core with a ruby edge. The bouquet offers vibrant black cherry, blackberry, and sweet plum aromas, touched by anise, white pepper, and scorched earth. The wine is smooth, balanced, and very accesible, delivering a core of pure fruit flavors with an intensity that is way beyond its price point. With black cherry and dark berry flavors leading the charge, the wine also hints at candied plum and strawberry as a fair dash of acidity keeps the flavors bright and vivacious across the palate. Very tatseful oak, pepper, and chocolate flavors emerge on the back palate, along with barely perceptible tannins. These add layers of complexity to the deep and ripe fruit flavors that finish with great persistence.
A fruit-bomb, yes, but no simpleton of a wine - this is an Aussie fruit bomb of the highest order, at a $9 price point that makes it caseworthy. A study in sweet, jammy and pure Mclaren Vale Shiraz fruit, with no pretensions and no rough edges. This could be a fine bbq wine, and we enjoyed it immensely as a stand-alone (with a few dark chocolate buttons that played beautifully off the fruit!)
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