Hamilton's Ewell Vineyards Barossa Valley Railway Shiraz, 2000

This wine is a pretty typical Barossa Shiraz. The color is dark and bluish. The nose offers scents of blackberries, shoe polish and very ripe cherries--qualities that carry over nicely to the palate. With rich, ripe fruit and 14.5% alcohol, the wine has a big mouthfeel, almost oozing with ripe cherries and oak and fruit tannins. The oak and fruit have become pretty well integrated, and the wine is drinking well, particularly with aeration.

At parties and holiday gatherings, Australian males frequently gather in a circle to taste and comment on what sometimes seems to be an endless array of wines--nearly all red and nearly all designed to impress. This wine meets both criteria. "Very big wine."