I will let all my readers in on a little secret.  You all owe me "big time" for this tip.  If you see me at a restaurant or bar, buy me a drink and we'll call it even.

Fox Creek is a well respected winery in Australia that is almost unheard of in this country.  They make a nice shiraz (syrah), and an excellent Shiraz reserve.  The reserve wine ordinarily retails for about $70 Australian dollars, which is equivalent to about $52 in American dollars.  Add in the import costs, duty taxes and so forth and you get retail prices in the US averaging about 60 to 70 bucks.  Now here's the secret.  I have been seeing the 2002 reserve selling in this country for peanuts.  In particular, those who bid for wines on the consignment auction section of Wine Commune can often times find this wine selling at auction for 15 dollars.  The wine has been showing up each week at Wine Commune for the last several weeks, with hammer prices running from about 13 dollars to 30 dollars.  Even at 30 dollars, the wine is a steal.  The Wine House in Los Angeles has it advertised for $25 on their web site (although if anyone is going to order it, make sure it is the Shiraz reserve, and not a misprint of the regular shiraz, as the web site is a little confusing in that regard).   The next cheapest place I have seen it is at winebuys.com, where it sells for $39 dollars, still a decent buy.  Most other places in the country sell it for somewhere between 60 and 100 dollars.  I think you get my point that the Wine Commune price and the Wine House price are tremendous deals.

The wine is awesome, and will improve even more over the next 3-5 years.  The wine has a bouquet of blackberry, saddle leather,  and prosciutto.  On the palate, one is treated to a fruit forward wine with a multi layer, complex, somewhat spicy experience.  The tannin here is prevalent, but very well concealed, and as such, the wine can be enjoyed now or it may be aged for additional complexity.  The finish lingers, and is pleasant.

Do yourself a favor.  If you see this wine for under 30 bucks, buy a few bottles for drinking now, and a few for storage.  If you are doing mail order, you need to buy enough so that the shipping costs per bottle are reasonable.  If you get it and don't like it, let me know and I might just buy your stash off you!  I don't know how long the supply of 2002 will last, since they only import about 350 cases per year.  For those who pay attention to vintages, 2002 was a phenomenal year in Australia. 

4 stars.

 

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