MESHACH

OK, OK, sorry about that but I thought it was funny. I've always liked the B52's (Love Shack is just about the only song that I will ever get up to dance to).

So. Meschack.

Me·shach  (mshch)In the Bible, a young man who with Abednego and Shadrach emerged unharmed from the fiery furnace of Babylon. For all those bible-bashers out there. For me, Meshack represents the best red wine that Grant Burge, from South Australia, produces. The fruit (Shiraz) is from the lovely Filsell vineyard, hand-picked, and added to similarly old-vine parcels (we are talking about 100 y.o.+ vines here) from around the Barossa Valley. About 6 years ago Lynn and I spent a glorious 3 weeks in the best wine regions of Australia and when in the Barossa Valley visited Grant Burge Wines and bought the 2001 Meshach. They keep it back for about 5 years before releasing it. Knowing that this is a great wine that gets subtly better with age we have kept it in the cellar. Tonight, having cooked a slow-cooked lamb dish, we thought that a wine of this calibre and age would suit the meal and a cool and rainy night. Right?  Yes, right. The wine is delicious. Unctuous. Smooth. Rich and delightful. With hints of violets lurking amongst the plum, blackberry and spicy flavours this has a surprising mix of richness, strength and power along with smoothness and elegance.  So, who cares? Well, frankly I do as I love wine. I love the wine industry and I am so annoyed that supermarkets and new, uneducated and inexperienced retailers are dominating the industry. The old-style wine merchants are unfortunately a thing of the past having died off, retired (my old mate Peter Rumble packed it in recently) or have been driven out of the business. Most people nowadays don't get the opportunity to try quality wines that have been well cellared and drunk at the optimum time because there are very few people out there, at the coalface as it were to advise them. We, luckily have a lot of nice wines maturing in our cellar. I am concerned however that the wines I 'laid down' some years ago are all going to mature at the same time and replacements are so much more expensive. We may have to sell off some of the gems of which we have multiple bottles and replace with newer vintages.