Wine Advisor
Standish, The Relic Shiraz-Viognier 2007
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Josh Raynolds
(a 96/4 blend) Opaque purple. Pungent bouquet displays aromas of dark berries, candied plum and licorice. Picks up brighter raspberry and rose qualities with aeration and offers deep, sweet red and dark berry flavors and velvety texture. Livelier than the 2006 version, combining intense sweetness with strong mineral cut on the spicy finish.
Reviewed by: Jay S Miller
The 2007 Shiraz-Viognier (4%) The Relic was sourced from the same parcel. Wild-fermented, it offers up a sexy bouquet of floral notes, bacon, smoked meat, incense, and blueberry. Dense, sweet and layered on the palate, it will offer much pleasure over the next 8-10 years. It does not get much better than this from the 2007 vintage. The Standish Wine Company is quickly becoming one of the Barossa Valley’s benchmarks. Importer: Epicurean Wines, Seattle, WA; tel. (206) 923-1376
About the Producer
The Standish Wine Company is located in Lyndoch, South Australia, in the Barossa wine region. Founded in 1999, the winery is already one of the outstanding wineries in the region despite its short history. Standish Wines was founded by Dan Standish. Mr Standish is an experienced winemaker who has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and has worked as a winemaker in California's Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Spain's La Rioja and France's Rhone Valley. In 1999, he inherited from his parents a vineyard in the Barossa Valley with typical sandy and clay soils and nearly 100 year old Syrah vines. Influenced by the style of wines from the Rhone Valley in France, Mr Standish considers this vineyard a gift from nature and it is the winery's mission to produce wines that express the character of the terroir. The grapes are harvested by hand, carefully brushed and destemmed, then fermented in wild yeasts in fermenters and aged for 30 months in 15% French oak barrels. Each wine is vinified for a minimum of two years before it can be sold, is neither filtered nor clarified before bottling, and only those wines of outstanding quality are labelled Standish. The estate's Syrahs are aromatic, full-bodied and sweet, with intense earthy and spicy flavours. In the past, the wines were only available for export or online orders, but now they are also available in small quantities to the national premium wine shops.
