Yellow Tail Shiraz

As an avid Wine Spectactor reader/follower, I read with pleasant surpise that the Yellow Tail (YT) Reserve Shiraz from 2005 and 2006 scored 90 and 89 points, respectively. The list price is roughly $11. After a few weeks of mentally reminding myself to hunt this down, I checked BevMo which featured this wine in their "second bottle for $0.05" sale. The list price was an outlandishly marked up $15 but they were all out, as this still gave a bottle at $7.50.

I went into a Safeway a couple weeks later, when I was too lazy to drive all the way to a Trader Joes for food and found 3 bottles of the 2005, so I snapped them up. (And had to buy 3 more other bottles to get the Safeway "6 bottle 10% discount." I chose a $29 2003 (!) L'Oratoire Chateauneuf du Pape, a $6 Columbia Crest Merlot/Cab and the $7 Rosemount 2005 Shiraz to round out the 6 pack).

I finally opened the YT 2005 Reserve Shiraz a week later, not to be confused with their regular 2006 Shiraz, which also scored well (87 points). I can see why it scored well. It has intense berry flavors, some oak, with a healthy bit of acidity, alot like other high quality Aussie Shirazes that I've found for $20-40. My wife liked it a lot, but I felt it was too acidic to be top-notch. Buy, oh what a difference a night makes. The next night, I tasted a much sweeter softer wine, that I would rate a 91, that was much more appealing, but my wife tasted an off putting bitterness. (I'm drinking it now, as I enter this.)

I've since seen it at BevMo again, and seen it on sale for $9 a bottle. And I just picked up the 2006 regular Shiraz in magnum size, which is 2X a regular bottle, for $8.60 at Costco. This should be one of the outstanding bargains for an under $6 per 750mL wine.

The bottom line is the Yellow Tail 2005 Reserve is a serious Shiraz and at $9-$10 is a bargain. You may not love it, but it is a concentrated wine that is a major step up from most wines at this price. Hunt down the Reserve 2005's while they still exist (50,000 cases) and if now, try some of the 2006's too.

I didn't think I would blog about Yellow Tail, but the wine world is unpredictable.