April marks the 56th installment of Wine Blogging Wednesday – a monthly online tasting/gathering of wine bloggers started by Len of Lenndevours. This month’s Wine Blogging Wednesday is hosted by Corkdork – and the theme for this month’s WBW is Fine Kosher Wine.
As with the prior two months, I am traveling and going solo (sans wife) for this WBW. Since I’m in Australia, I’m kinda ok with being away from home this month.
Being in Melbourne presented a slight challenge in terms of finding a varied selection of kosher wines at the local bottle shops. Although the Aussies have an infinite range of wine choices, the bottle shops I visited did not provide much of a selection in the way of kosher wine (or American wines as noted in my last post).
I finally found a few kosher wines tucked away in the back corner of Dan Murphy’s wine shop in downtown Melbourne. Of the 4 Kosher wines to choose from I went with the home team – the Teal Lake Shiraz made by Teal Lake Estate in South Eastern Australia.
Teal Lake 2007 Shiraz
I believe this is the first time I’ve had a kosher wine so I was definitely looking forward to tasting. This wine was $17.99 AUD (~ $13 US) with a real cork closure, which can be considered somewhat unique in the land of screw caps. Color was deep purple with pink edges. My first impression of this wine was burnt match. I thought the wine needed some time to open up, so I went for a run, came back about an hour later and the burnt match smell was still present. Went to dinner, came back 90 minutes later, still there but not as pronounced. Along with the burnt match aroma, I found hints of blackberry and prune along with an herbal component on the nose. Tightly wound tannins with tastes of sour cherry and cranberry. Overall, I feel this particular wine provided low value for the money and definitely needed more time in the bottle.
Hat tip to Corkdork for this month’s WBW theme and expanding my palate…
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Drink What YOU Like 
Though there are great kosher wines to be had, I felt similarly. The Teal Lake unfortunately, is not one of them! Kudos on finding a kosher wine in Australia though. I’m curious, what were the other kosher wines offered there?
Hello Erika:
Thank you for stopping by. Although I tried to keep an open mind about this wine, I did have low expectations, especially after the store manager suggested that I not buy any of the kosher selections.
Of the thousands of wine brands in this store (similar to BevMo or Total Wine here in US), there were a total of just four kosher brands – Teal Lake, Altoona, Barkan and one other that I can’t recall. I went with the Teal Lake because it was from Australia and was the most expensive choice so I figured that might increase the probability of me liking this wine (I know… a triffle way to shop). I did find it funny that the kosher wines were located in a dark corner of the store and shared space with fruit wines and what appeared to be the Australian equivalent of Boone’s Farm.
Best,
Frank
I only drank Kosher wine once- but loved it ever since! The story behind this wine is even more amazing.
Kosher wines are much easier to find here in the US than in Australia, so I’ve been able to try several others since I returned. All the best. Frank