Just having a wine – a younger Australian wine blog

The Nero D’Avola is another of the Sensi Collezione range that I purchased from Direct Wine Cellars before Christmas but I was yet to try. 

This wine had a lovely appearance, on the cusp of ruby/garnet, I’ve been told when it’s younger that the grape has a bit of a dark purple tinge too, I’ll have to track down a young Australian one to see.

Moving on to the nose, there were notes of spice but with berry characters coming through as well, it was subtle but definitely there. It seemed to come alive once poured through the vinturi and getting a bit of oxygen into it.

The palate had smooth but present tannins with medium length, I found the persistent finish to really balance out the wine.

After a recent period of mainly Barossa Shirazes (a weakness of wine, I openly admit it) it was quite a shock to the system. The lack of strong tannic structure and the lower alcohol content (compared with the aforementioned shirazes) wasn’t an unpleasant one, and made  a nice change. One of the major pluses of this wine was the challenge of something new and different, which is why I am a bit prone to buying too many alternative varietals…although I’m not convinced that’s a bad thing.

I did find this different to some of the Italian wines I had over Christmas, where you could really taste the earthiness in the wines, but I think this could be a varietal characteristic which, being unfamiliar with Nero D’Avola, may be typical of the grape.

After this wine I decided that for the next fortnight Barossa Shiraz was off the table and I would be trying other wines. Let’s see if I can keep it up!