1997 Best's Great Western Thomson Family Shiraz (1500ml)

Four thousand five hundred and sixty bottles of this extraordinary wine were made from the 1997 vintage - that's a total of 380 dozen available for the entire world. The Best's Great Western Thomson Family Shiraz is an International Wine Icon. The vines were established in 1869 by Henry Best and 130 years later the wine enters the new Millennium as one of a wine lover's most desirable possessions.Each November we anxiously await the release of this wine and with each successive vintage our expectations reach new levels, and yet in the back of our minds we have a nagging tall poppy syndrome - Viv Thomson surely can't produce a better wine than he did last year? He has to falter some time! Viv is too smart to be complacent, and as each vintage is blessed with spectacular fruit, he manages to create its perfect bottle expression. However, when nature turns against him as it did in 1999, there was no Thomson made - severe frosts saw to that.The 1997 Thomson is an expression of Shiraz fruit concentrate and in our opinion is completely undervalued, thus offering great investment upside. Consider what else is available in the market place of this quality. Chateau Tahbilk 1860 vines Shiraz retails at around $110 a bottle, the current vintage of Henschke Hill of Grace is available at around $295 a bottle (if you can get it) and Roman Bratasuick's Australis is $165 a bottle (again if you can get it).The 1997 Best's Thomson Family Shiraz has all the requirements for improving both in value and quality over time. The criteria for investment upside in wine is similar to that of antiques. Firstly, the wine must be rare - not a product of mass production. Secondly, it must be of exceptionally high quality. Thirdly, it must be undervalued at the time of purchase. Fourthly, it must have a pedigree - that it's not just a bottle of wine which has been made by chance. Lastly, it must improve in quality over time.

TASTING NOTE: This is almost the perfect wine. It achieved the remarkable score of 99.3 out of 100, the highest ranking wine in memory. Opaque crimson colour with mauve edges. Exceptional nose of violets, blackpepper, spice, liquorice allsorts, confectionary, vanilla and an aniseed end note. Totally mouthfilling. Concentrate of Shiraz! Flavours of blackpepper, spice, liquorice and blackcurrant, filling every cavity of the mouth. On the back palate the blackpepper flavour explodes and carrys through the after flavour in an exceptional long aftertaste that lasts for 5 minutes and more. Velvet smooth tannins. Perfect balance and capable of 10-20 year cellaring. AN AUSTRALIAN TREASURE AND A WONDERFUL PIECE OF HISTORY TO TAKE INTO THE NEXT MILLENNIUM.