Rusden Black Guts Shiraz 2005 Revisited
Almost black colour but not enough guts to start. Allow 30 minutes+ in the glass to help to relieve it from oak suppression and fix further the fruit. The first nose is blasts of black currant, blue and blackberry. The second comes dense plum extract, cola with hints of violets, chocolate, tar, coffee bean, white pepper, Asian spices and bacon fat, cumulating onto an appealing dry, earthy finish. Even though Rusden Black Guts Shiraz 2005 is at 15.5 % ABV, there was no heat during the long and fruity finish. Full-bodied. Throughout the tasting, bounty and excellent Barossa fruit points to some Germanic purity and balance and recall lots of Rockford Basket Press, Stonewell and Yarra Yering stylistics.
Rusden Black Guts Shiraz 2005 is the flagship. Its recent sibling Sandscrub released only in 2008(now selling hefty), hence. We thought that if Rusden Black Guts Shiraz from a riper 2005 vintage expresses itself as a good bottle of 'wine'; Sandcrub is a perfect steak. Rusden Black Guts Shiraz 2005 to us is New World wine made in an Old World style. It is a fruit-driven wine with some depth dimension, character and balance.
The field efforts are admirable. Vines rejuvenated(from 50 to 80 years vines); grapes handpicked, de-stemmed, late pruned. The wine-making style is impressive: whole-berries, short cycle fermentation, alcohol blow-off, shovel by hands, night-pressing, simulated wood-crusher, to name a few.
The Rusden Vineyard nestled on the deep Vine Vale sand in the foothills below the eastern Barossa Ranges. The soil is deep white sand over red clay which gives versatile and consistent grape growing district on the Barossa Valley floor.
Parker et al. like this wine and the vintage.
Wine Advocate 97
The flagship wine is the 2005 Black Guts Shiraz, sourced from estate Shiraz vines yielding a meager 1 to 1.5 tons of fruit per acre. It was aged for 30 months in 35% new French and American oak and 65% in old French barriques. Saturated purple in color, it offers up its characteristic sexy, kinky, exotic bouquet of smoke, wild blueberry, meat, game, mineral, and bacon. Layered, succulent, and exceptionally long, this already complex Shiraz will evolve for several years with a prime drinking window from 2012 to 2025.
