Flaxman Wines The Drone Red Blend 2009
14.5%, Screwcap, $25
Source: Sample
http://www.flaxmanwines.com.au/

60% Grenache from Williamstown, 40% Mataro from Bethany. Matured for 12 months in older American and French oak. Open ferment, minimal pumping, no filtering or fining.

Wonderful winemaking that. Red wine production the way it should be. Happily, it tastes as natural, unforced and carefully put together as the intro makes it out to be.

What it also tastes of is the success of Grenache and Mataro in the Barossan 2009 vintage, carrying the juicy, almost carbonic like red fruit vibrancy that 09 seems to impart. It’s a welcome trait for mine, particularly in a style such as this, and as a result I really quite enjoyed drinking this.

In the glass it looks surprisingly bright for something unfined and unfiltered, with a bright ruby red glow going on. Tick. The nose is all about bright fruit too, with the redcurrant essence character of well ripened Grenache mingling with the sausage meat wildness of Mataro delivered without any oak embellishments. There’s a liberal does of pepper in there too with a spiciness that has plenty of Southern Rhone about it.

What follows on the palate is actually quite light, with red fruit and licorice flavours concentrated around the mid palate. This is where the juiciness, the joy of ripe fruit, sits, with the finish after that largely driven by alcohol warmth rather than tannins. This is both a boon and a bust, for I think I want a little more structure to be really won over. Regardless, the fruit forward style here makes this one impressive, drink-it-like-Sangria styled wine of naturalness and purity. Extra points for how much I like drinking it. 17.6/91

(oh and I borrowed the image from Jeremy Pringle as I’m clearly too lazy to source my own. Check out his review of the wine here )