The Holy Trinity

This wine plus the following two wines reviewed, and all the other wines brought to us by The Bro to enjoy this Christmas, were all rated 90 or above by Wine Spectator.

2000

37% Grenache, 36% Shiraz, 27% Mourvedre

Barossa

Would love to drink again (and I will because I have another bottle!)

Please Note: I drank this wine with NO FOOD. It had also been several hours since eating. I'd had water and tea, but no food since lunch. I had another glass the following night right after dinner and its flavor was drowned out. I had it again the next night without food and loved it again. Interestingly enough, it is a recommended wine to have with a Moroccan Chicken recipe I have. I am going to try to make that in the near future and open a bottle to pair with the meal. I am interested to see what that does to the flavor of the wine (the chicken has plain yogurt and mint in it).

I like everything about this wine - the name, the design, the color, the smell, and the taste. Awesome. A beautiful dark, yet subdued purple color, the bouquet was sort of an herbed red meat with a hint of black cherry. The taste was an earthy thyme meets steak and Kalamata olives. The lasting finish wrapped up all scents and flavors nicely. As The Bro said "The taste hints that it's about to burst into this big sweet fruit bomb, but then it just subsides." But not without alot of other flavor - it stays more herb-like than sweet, but sort of teases you that it's about to explode in sweetness. The finish is packed with olive and earth.

Christmas night The Guy lined up (5) samples of wine for the Bro and I to taste but placed (6) bottles of wine in front of us for us to guess what was what. Only The Guy knew what was what. We had Fieldstone Reserve Red Table Wine, Belle Glos Pinot Noir, Cloudline Pinot Noir, Kendall Jackson Cabernet, The Holy Trinity and Turning Leaf Merlot. I did well but probably for all the wrong reasons. I got them all right except for the (2) Pinot Noirs which I had backwards. The Turning Leaf bottle was thrown in there to confuse us but was never poured. The first wine I tasted was the Fieldstone (I will be reviewing this wine in a few days) and it tasted weak so I knew it wasn't one of the big power horses. Not only that, but the color is a very light red and that's what I first noticed compared to all the others. I knew it by its color immediately. The Belle Glos I confused with the Cloudline which intrigued me because I really liked both of these wines but I thought I could pull out the Belle easily and that it was vastly different from the Cloudline but it wasn't (though the Belle is $45 and the Cloudline is $17!!!). The KJ I also picked out right away for the wrong reason - it was cold and it had been brought in earlier in the day as a gift for us from a very cold car which it had been in for quite some time. So I immediately tasted the coldness and knew. It was hard to concentrate on any flavor as a result. But The Holy Trinity made me smile the minute I tasted it!! I knew exactly which one it was. It's that unique.

The Burge Family writes the following on the back of the label:

The doctrine of "The Holy Trinity", being the union or coming together as 'one', symbolises the Burge family's migration to the Barossa Valley in the 1850's. The People (the Burge family), the Faith (The Holy Trinity Church, Lyndoch) and the Land (the vines), coming together as 'one', have created a tradition of winemaking in our family for over a century.

I took a picture of this bottle in front of a picture handed down to me from my grandmother who told me it is (a very old) photo of the dirt road that led to one of my ancestor's houses in Australia. They left Scotland with the intent of coming to the United States but settled first in Australia for awhile.

9.5 out of 10

$27.99 / 750 bottle

13.9% alc. by vol.