Chateau Chateau Skulls – $17

Old World Wines vs New World Wines, Terrior vs Manipulated, Earthy vs Fruity. There has been a bit of a shift happening in the wine world, Australian wine sales are off 23%, stores that used to stock 100 different Aussie labels, not stock half that amount. There has been a backlash in the Wine Press, Australian wines are often described as “fruit bombs” or “over extracted”. I don’t quite get the change in attitude, Australian wines are every bit as good now as they were when they were the hottest wines going. So, times and tastes change and R winery is rolling with the changes. The Chateau Chateau series of wine is intended to show the terroir, the effects of Australian soil and weather conditions on the Grenache grape. They have a line of single vineyard vines all done in an “Old World” style. Skulls is the entry level wine for Chateau Chateau and has a very cool label, look at it one way and it is a surreal painting of a man falling from a tree, look at it again and it is a human skull.

Skulls is a french style blend of 60% Grenache and 40% Mataro (another name for Mourvedre or Monastrell) no oak, aged in stainless steel. This is the entry level wine and it is not single vineyard,but sourced from vineyards all over South Australia. The nose is nice jammy cooked dark fruit with a touch of spice, the color is a see thru burgundy. The flavor has dark fruit in the lead, but it has mushroom, stewed meat element too. A very interesting transition on your palate from fruit to the savory flavors and then a nice long finish. All the flavors are well blended, nothing jarring, a slight bite from the tannins at first but that goes away with the second sip. All the delicious fruit you would expect from an Australian wine, but it still has that French funky, earthy thing going on, the best of both worlds.  Interesting flavors and the label is pretty cool, this one is a winner.