Let us, as they say, start at the start...Barossa
refers to a specific geographic locale, which houses the vineyard producing
this wine. As we know by now, Shiraz is the Australian name for Syrah. As I was
talking a bit last week about my favorite region of wine, I thought I might
take a minute for some metrics of the full HSC list, including ones that are
now discontinued, just to get a glimpse at where the numbers statistically are
falling. Feel free to skip the next 3 paragraphs if you don’t care about such
things, but I do have a point to this…sort of.
As of this writing, [Editors Note: the date this installment was written was 01/25/15: several of these numbers have changed considerably since then, however, for the sake of posterity, let the verbosity continue] of the 62 wines currently on the list,
California, as a wine-producing region, is by far the most well-represented,
with 24 of the entries, or ~39%. However, it is worth noting that they have by
far the largest selection in the various liquor and wine stores, do not face
strict import laws and tend to be overall the least expensive, which gives them
huge advantages in this regard. The next closest, Italy and France, both tied
at 9 each, both have a fraction of the selection and have little opportunity to
change that, as I’ve already gone through all of the French wines that meet the
price criteria for the list and almost all of the Italian ones. The least
well-represented on this list, conversely, is a 5-way tie with Austria,
Germany, Portugal, Chile and Argentina all having 1 slot each on the list. So,
we don’t have anything telling there. Greater opportunity results in greater
numerical results and doesn’t accurately reflect my personal preference, that
being the Italian wines, though California is admittedly a closer and closer
overall second. There are more metrics to analyze here, but I’ll defer in favor
of the meta-analysis.
As to ratings, to further cloud the issue, we have the
ratings, which are the Standard, Mixed and SPA-Only. Refer back to the first
couple posts for what they mean respectively. The entire HSC list is intended
that one can simply buy any wine on it and enjoy a good quality wine and/or
value, but the Standards are ones that price ceases to be a consideration, which
makes them sort of the crème de la crème, whereas conversely SPA-Only means
that price is the main consideration. As of this, my 39th posting to
the HSC blog, taking out the whites, which are not rated, we have a pool of 35.
Of those, 11 are standards, which is right around 31 percent. In that 11, 2 are
dessert wines, which I’m throwing out. 9
remain and California again leads the charge with 4 and Blends represent type
best with 5.
From there, we next look at types of wines. Discounting the
cooking whites, the dessert wines, including champagne and the non-grape wines,
such as mead and sake, we have a pool then of 51. Of this shallower pool, we
have “Blend” showing up 16 times or ~31% of the time. Next closest does not
reach double digits, with Bordeaux, Syrah and Pinot Noir showing up 4 times
each. The lowest is not worth mentioning. In light of those overwhelming
numbers, when countries represented ceases to largely matter, it would be
foolish for me to say that anything other than Blends was my overall favorite
type of wine, as it is represented right across the board in the presence of
any statistically significant numbers.
When we go to single varietals, though, we can see some
different shapes emerging. Bordeaux was far and away my former favorite. However,
I definitely enjoy a great Pinot Noir as well, but for some time, Syrah has
done a great job of nudging itself into the slot as my all-around favorite.
Yes, I certainly harbor strong fondness for the Nero d’Avola as well, but the
wonderful Syrah has resonated well with me and if I had to pick one that was
the best of all possible worlds, it would be hard for me to look past it.
Australia was, for quite some time, most prominent with this
grape and this wine is a wonderful example of that grape, robust, a bit toothy,
solid, with plenty of depth and that wonderful mouth feel and flavor that is a
hallmark to me of this varietal, when done right, of course. This one is a bit
softer and has a longer finish than some of the others, but this just provides
further evidence to the potential complexity of that truly special grape.
Price on this one gets a bit into the upper ranges of the
HSC cap and I’ve not ever seen it on SPA. While I like it, it’s not of
sufficient measure to deem it a Standard, thus is comes in at a Mixed.
