Kurtz Lunar Block Shiraz 2005

94 pts Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar - Lush and creamy but energetic, offering sweet blackberry and boysenberry flavors

Tasting Notes

The bouquet is beautifully perfumed fruit and coffee oak. The palette has ultra fine- grained tannins that are totally unobtrusive and provide a solid backbone to hold the wine together and provide a lovely mouth feel. Savoury coffee and clove from the oak combine with sweet underlying red berry fruit and savoury blackberry flavours. Like all the wines from this winery, it is full-bodied, has a solid structure and firm consistency. The complexity is harmonious and agreeable, the wine just slips down and whilst it is ready to be drunk now further cellaring for 4-5 years will be rewarding.

Food Accompaniments

Red meats, cheese or on its own.

Awards, Reviews and other Notes

94 pts Stephen Tanzer's International Wine Cellar
Glass-staining purple. Hypnotic, strongly perfumed scents of red and dark berry preserves, incense, violet oil, vanilla and Asian spices. Lush and creamy but energetic, offering sweet blackberry and boysenberry flavors, silky tannins and great back-end lift and thrust. Vibrant, pure and focused shiraz with excellent finishing sweetness and spicy persistence. There are only 66 cases of this juice.

93 pts Robert Parker Jr.'s The Wine Advocate
A minuscule 66 cases were produced of the outstanding 2005 Lunar Block Shiraz, a wine aged 31 months in new French oak hogsheads (300-liter barrels). A glass-coating opaque purple color, it displays an aromatic array of toast, smoke, pencil lead, mineral, lavender, incense, and blueberry. Smooth-textured, ripe, and opulent on the palate, it conceals enough fine-grained tannin to evolve for another 3-4 years. This pleasure-bent Shiraz will provide enjoyment through 2020.

92 Wine Enthusiast Magazine
Full bodied and plushly textured, this is a rich, heavily oaked wine that successfully marries menthol- and coffee-scented oak with intense raspberry fruit. The tannins are soft and well ripened while the fruit remains fresh despite its long sojourn in oak. Dramatic and lush.

Winemaker Notes

This wine represents the top of our stable. The wine is bottle matured a minimum of 12 months prior to release. Lunar Block was purchased on July 21st 1969; the day man walked on the moon and consequently has since been known as ‘Lunar Block’. The vines were at least 10 years old back then and now represent some of the oldest vines on the property. Low cropping with no irrigation creates vine balance ensuring fruit with great colour and concentrated varietal characteristics. It is recommended that this wine decanted prior to serving as this will allow the wine to show its true potential, and I trust you won’t be disappointed. The 2004 Kurtz Family Vineyards Lunar Block Shiraz is the sixth release of this individual vineyard block wine.

Chemical Analysis

Price

SKU

Varietal

Alcohol %: 13.5

$74.99

8473

Shiraz