Big, nutty, creamy nose, all roasted ripe fruit: fig and dank berry, headed towards prune. Dark garnet with considerable brick. Dusty and aged, but still rotund, a fleshy, rich drop of considerable volatility.
Rich and decadent in the mouth, bitter cherry awash with orange peel and gravely splendor. While heady and extravagant, balanced to a tee, the fruit taking on faded, polished notes against a finish still awash in tannin. One of my favorite d’Arenbergs, and these wines age SOOO well. This little stained screw-top has a decade to go, EASY. Quite sorry it’s my last one. Fabulous stuff.
2008 D’ARENBERG ‘The Laughing Magpie’ Shiraz/Viog 94/6 McLaren Vale Australia 14.5
Stephen McConnell 