2006 Three Brothers Reunited Shiraz

94 points, $10 per bottle. HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?

At Nicks Wine Merchants / Vintage Direct, we endeavour to taste every wine that comes onto the market in order to select only the best products at any given price point. With over 14,000+ labels currently on the Australian Market as well as samples arriving from every corner of the globe, this is a monumental task, and one that is often joked about by customers as being a 'dream job.' In reality, judging around 3500 wines per year professionally, as opposed to simply tasting wines, requires discipline and concentration.

What’s more, the evaluation system we use - the Winespider system - is transparent and fully accountable making it very difficult to tell lies. The full spectrum of a wines subtleties are visually expressed in the Winespider graph (see the radial graph on the right). A round profile following the outer limits of the web is indicative of a great wine - a 95 to 99/100 point rating - complete and balanced in every way. A wine with a similarly shaped graph, but with only average concentration, intensity and length for example, while rating 'highly' at 89/100, is nonetheless seriously lacking in some important aspects - namely the palate. Consequently, minor discrepencies in scores between similar wines can mean significant differences in quality (visit www.winespider.com for more information).

At Nicks Wine Merchants, all wines are initially reviewed and rated by Nick Chlebnikowski and the same day the wines are sent to the buyers who then make a short list of the strongest samples, and finally the wines are circulated amongst the remaining members of staff. It is only because of this exhaustive screening process and unremitting search for quality that we can confidently make such bold statements as we have done in the case of the 2006 Three Brothers Reunited Shiraz: Quite simply, there is no other $10 wine on the market that matches the quality and flavour profile of this wine. The 2002 was the first vintage and was heralded as an instant success, finding comparison with early vintages of Penfold‘s Koonunga Hill, with subsequent vintages selling out in record time.

Since then, winemaker Ben Riggs’ challenge has been to repeat the performance of 2002 or even to better it. This is no mean feat given the miserly price point the wine was positioned at to begin with, and expected to maintain. Yet remarkably, each new release has seen a step up in quality with the 2006 expressing the best palate flavour profile to date. The Three Brothers’ ongoing success must be largely attributed to the series of outstanding vintages South Australia has experienced. But just as importantly, are the positive relationships Ben Riggs continues to foster with growers throughout the McLaren Vale region and South Australia. This means that even in dry vintages like 2006, when yeilds have been well down, Riggs is assured of a supply of quality fruit at reasonable prices, even for his ‘entry level’ wines.

“We can confidently say that there is no other $10 wine on the market that matches the quality and flavour profile of this wine.”.

Tasting note:
Very deep crimson colour with deep crimson hue. Lifted nose but by no means showing its maximum potential, with top note of spice, followed by plum, vanilla and confectionary. The palate depth and complexity comes as an unexpected surprise – the flavour is voluptuous and delivers layers of ripe plum, vanilla, confectionary, spice and black pepper, very mouthfilling, supported by fine dryish but perfectly balanced tannins. At $20 or $30 a bottle you would expect to consider that you have just experienced a very good value for money red – At $9.99, this wine is a vinous bargain!
Cellar 3-4 years (2011-2012)
Alc/Vol: 14.5%