By David Ellis from vintnews.
If a bulk-buy looks to be in order as the white for that next dinner party but you don’t want to appear to being something of a cheapskate by sacrificing quality for price, satisfy quality and price with McGuigan’s 2015 Black Label Chardonnay.
Because here’s a great drop that’s just $10 a bottle – and as little as $8 by the half- or dozen-bottle lot at some of the major chains – and when you taste it, you’ll be wondering why it’s not up to nearly double the asking price.
Blended from fruit from across south-eastern Australia, this is a wine that’s rich with tropical-fruit and melon flavours, has a touch of oak and an almost creamy palate, and not surprisingly has been the cornerstone white of the highly-popular Black Label range for many years.
Great to kick-off that dinner party with pre-main finger foods, it’s then equally at home with a whole range of main-course fish, chicken, pork or creamy pasta dishes.
One to note: if you’re into your roast beef, and the more-so with a peppery sauce that’s just spicy enough to give it that little extra oomph, an ideal wine to pair it with it is Katnook’s 2015 Founder’s Block Shiraz out of Coonawarra.
From a vintage that enjoyed warm summer days and cool nights that were ideal for flavour composition, this is a wine with lovely raspberry and plum fruit flavours, varietal Shiraz pepper and spice overtones and noticeable but not over-powerful oak.
Coonawarra is more well-known for its Cabernet Sauvignon, but makers like Katnook have for some time now been producing equally impressive Shiraz, and which was actually first planted there 120 years ago in 1896.
If you’re not so much into peppery sauces as suggested above, other great food matches with this one are grilled lamb chops or barbecued bratwurst sausages.
