Soul Growers Slow Grown Shiraz 2009 Slow to grow, probably less slow to drink

Soul Growers Slow Grown Shiraz 2009 (Barossa, SA)
15.5%, Cork, $50
Source: Sample
www.soulgrowers.com

The flagship Soul Growers red (in a hefty bottle too) and built like it too. What’s most remarkable is just how well this carries it’s ripeness and weight – it’s a warm wine, but not a heavy one, a twinkle toed heavyweight boxer in a rather satisfying style.

It smells like a heavyweight too, with a sweet and juicy nose of blackberry/raspberry sauce, drinking chocolate, cola (the good stuff, not Pepsi) and black licorice. There’s a wonderful old school Barossan depth to that nose, that sort of limitless, oak buffed richness and extract that drives the dopamine levels of most red wine drinkers through the roof. I’d like to see a fraction less volatility, yet that’s also part of the style I suppose, a stylistic quibble from the gallery perhaps…

The power continues through the palate too, the dry, chewy, cocoa and berry middle driving the palate along with chalky, cocoa edged tannins (it really needs time in the decanter to come together – 6 hours plus). It’s built large, oaky (quality, deepset oak) and alcoholic but not intrusively so, with that open fermented, basket pressed, low acid softness to seduce further. Interestingly I found the alcohol level noticeable but not intrusive, an indication of grapes that were ripe but not overly so…

Ultimately there’s no ignoring that this is a beast of a wine. Yet it’s also one with a certain seductiveness to it that can’t be ignored. A wine that’s not for everyone and not for every night, but fills a certain hole. A wine of heart and depth and more heart and more Barossan depth, cast anything but elegant, yet rightfully so. An uncompromised wine (and happily so). 18.3/93