My wife, the Green Dragon, loves Mardi Gras – as I do. We love the spirit of New Orleans, the people, the music and the food. The joie de vivre saturates this annual blowout.
So on Tuesday we fired up the Zydeco music while the Green Dragon baked some beignets and cooked some jambalaya. Her jambalaya is spicy with sausage, but also has shrimp. That makes it a tough call on a wine pairing.
I grabbed this 2010 Pillar Box Reserve Shiraz from Henry’s Drive Vignerons. I scored it a while ago from Underground Cellar.
Shiraz is the same grape as Syrah but the style is usually different. Shiraz can be a bit sweeter, but it also can be incredibly rich and complex, resulting in some of the world’s best wines.
The wine is a deep, dark crimson in the glass. We sipped our initial glass while the rest of the bottle decanted. We had some nice crusty bread to counteract the spice of the entrée. We were pleased to discover that the Pillar Box could stand up to the spice. As Green Dragon put it, this is no wimpy wine.
While there is a nice medley of fruit flavors, it tends toward the dark side. With deep flavors of plum and cooked fruit minced with scratches of tar and spice. It has multiple layers. Hours later we revisited the decanter and found more delicate flavors that our Cajun dish had overpowered earlier.
This wine is a winner: a great Aussie for about $25. You’ll be glad to go “down under” for this Shiraz.
Rating: 3.5 of 5 Value: 4 of 5
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