Richard Hamilton Centurion Old Vine Shiraz 2002

Continuing the trend of pairing one dose of boring exam studying with one dose of tasty vino, I opened another one of my cellared wines tonight. The Centurion Shiraz is made from 110 year old vines and hails from the McLaren Vale. 2002 was a great year in southern Australia and this wine proves that a good vintage can really add a lot of character to a wine. This is pleasantly not a typical shiraz, and although it had a fairly closed nose, the palate brought forward great flavours of cherry, chocolate and spice with a lot of structure and character. That said, it could use a more complex development of flavours and a longer, more developed finish to bring it to the 'next level'. I think, once again, that it would improve with age, but probably not extraordinarily so. It's still really tasty and probably justifies the price (given that it's BC and all prices are grossly inflated by taxes). Once again Australia proves that it can produce much more than jammy sugary shiraz.

Very Good+
$45 at BCLDB (ALthough I don't thnk they have any left)