Laughing Jack, Greenock Shiraz 2009

Unless you’re related to one of its 685 residents, you’re unlikely to have heard of Greenock, a town nestled in the northwestern edge of the Barossa Valley, but you’ll certainly be hearing a lot more about their wine if they can replicate vintages like the 2009 Laughing Jack Greenock Shiraz!

Owner and vigneron Shaun Kalleske named the winery after a resident flock of Kookaburras at their Marananga vineyard but has taken the fruit for the Greenock Shiraz from the region around the township named after a village bearing the same name situated on the Clyde River in Scotland.

The Barossa typically produces a plump and ripe style of Shiraz and while that’s true of the Laughing Jack, the 2009 vintage of the Greenock exhibits intense chocolate and raisin flavours across the palate before the combination of French and American oak provide an ever so slightly cedary tannic backbone through the finish. The real attraction of the current release is the way in which the ripe dark fruit emboldens on the palate, fills the mouth and stimulates the taste buds without a hint of flabbiness or alcohol burn.

It’s a full-bodied style best enjoyed with a cheese platter or red meat dish, but at $35 – $40 a bottle, it’s not really sold at a “drink me now” price point.