Shiraz (Margaret River, Western Australia)

Let's go surfing today. Seriously. If you like the really big waves, there are few, if any, places any better to ride them than the Indian Ocean coast of Western Australia. But, while it sounds like fun, we are not in Western Australia to ride the waves.

We're tucked in the far southwestern corner of Australia. While this is not a huge wine-producing region of the country in terms of volume and there aren't a whole lot of wineries here whose names you'll see on bottles at your local neighborhood liquor shop that happens to sell wine, a meaningful portion of the premium level wines of Australia come from Margaret River.

The weather here doesn't change a whole lot. From the heat of summer to the cold of winter, the mean daily temperatures only vary by 7-8C/13/14F. And, nights are not much cooler than days. And while some 45 inches of rain fall in a typical year, only about 8 inches of that falls during growing season. If you're looking for a point of comparison in terms of weather, think Bordeaux during, especially during one of its drier growing seasons.

Unlike many of the rest of Australia's wine-producing regions, Shiraz is not king here. Yet, it is prevalent enough and good enough that we thought it was worth stopping in for a day.

Unlike South Australia where we are headed tomorrow, the climate here is pretty traditionally Mediterranean. And, with no notable truly mass producers, the winemakers in Margaret River generally consider themselves craftsman. They take great pains to make expressions of the unique for Australia terroir to produce their own style of wines including Shiraz.

The soil here that influences the wines is quite gravelly providing naturally outstanding drainage. Red and somewhat loamy, they're a bit of a mix of granite (the world's oldest), schist (metamorphic and easily mistaken by the untrained eye for shale) and largely limestone gneiss (another metamorphic construction). What you don't see in these soils are nutrients and it is this challenge to the grapes that stresses them producing intense earth tones in the wine.

We sampled about a dozen at several different wineries throughout the Margaret River wine region. While there were noticeable differences as there always will be, we did find some similarities in all the Shiraz we tasted today. On the nose, there is significant earthiness with cafe au lait, nutmeg, and fennel. On the palate, this wine has lots of berry, but the berry structure is somewhat unique. On the front palate, the fruit is quite red, but as it moves backward in the mouth, the fruit mysteriously darkens.

These wines will age quite well. And, while we were here, we were blessed to be treated to five bottlings of vintages ranging from 1998 to 2010. All were still maturing although the 1998 had lost much of its fruit. What we noticed in the older wines, however, as the fruit was fading, was lots of black pepper and black olive.

These wines would pair wonderfully with local lamb slow cooked over an open fire. I have to say, though, I also like the idea of sampling these wines with pleasant conversation with friends.