ON THE NOSE:
Deep cherry and black currant fruit, concentrated and profound, with generous cream and vanilla, hide-leather, some rusty nails, dust, and a little bit of slightly moldy stage-curtain! Rather nice, bold nose, quite good just after popping, a bit sweet, I admit, but comfy and rich.
ON THE PALATE:
Quite disjointed early on as if it doesn’t really know what it is yet; it almost tastes “old,” if you will, with a heat to the alcohol that is not fresh, but tired, yet still hot. A bit later it loses some of this awkward clumsiness, but still lacks any real identity and character. The mouthfeel is plush, however, which we like, with tannins that only begin to descend into the lower jaw, but never actually get there. The acidity, too, climbs to the upper-palate with a good attack but disappears too fast before leaving a vacuous gasoline essence in its wake. It really is like it leaves a black-hole. Maybe this bottle is a wee-bit corked, not out and out corked, but perhaps just a little.
After many hours it becomes clear that this wine will never do anything. The local wine shop offered this Shiraz at $12 down, they say, from an original price of $30, but this wine would never have been worth $30, that is for sure. Darcey, I admit, likes this wine more than I saying “I’m enjoying it!” Maybe it’s my mood, which isn’t all that foul, actually, yet this wine offers nothing but rich ambiguity. It tastes like an old cellar door. It tastes like a greasy, unkempt auto-shop waiting room. It tastes like stagnant rainwater from a rusty gutter.
Yeah, yeah, whatever. Darcey says “I don’t think it’s bad. I think we’ve had a lot worse!” Then she says “it does kind of smell like ozone.” I agree that we’ve had worse (e.g. Protocolo Red, Maysara Pinot Noir, Night Owl Shiraz, to name but a few), but tonight I wanted something good, and this wine does not deliver. It brings me down, wets my socks and generally makes me unhappy. Darcey is a better person than me, and she is content enough with this lame effort, but I cannot concur. This stuff is one bad grape away from swill. I want more, even for $12. The nose is not all that bad, this I do acknowledge, but the structure is lousy, the mid palate is flabby, the finish doesn’t exist and the aftertaste is sour. Darcey, I Love you dearly, but here we diverge.
Tomorrow is another day, and we’ll open something new and different, so until that time, I wish you all out there a fond good day, and do yourselves a favor and passsssss on the Forefathers McLaren Vale Shiraz 2004. You’re welcome! Thanks for reading!
Note added later: A friend just gifted me another bottle of this Shiraz, so I guess I’ll get another chance to see if it has anything to offer, see if perhaps the first bottle we shared was somehow damaged, or see if perhaps I was right in my opinion and this wine is simply not that good … either that or I’ll re-gift it!
(Click here for an explanation of our ratings ...)
Our Rating: 80
Would we drink it again? 
I'd rather not. We do have another bottle and Darcey wants me to try it again, so maybe I will, but ... I'd rather not.
Would we buy it again?
Pass!
Winemaker's notes
This one is the best wines we have ever made under the Shiraz label, being a similar vintage to the 2001. However, in 2004 we had very low yields culminating in big pepper spice flavors and very supple tannins. The key to Forefathers is balance and complexity with underlying power, and in 2004 we have the power but we especially have this beautiful harmony and complexity. On the palate the wine is firm, textural, and viscous. The long finish and silky mouth feel makes the wine drink beautifully now, and it will certainly improve in the cellar over the next five years.
About the McLaren Vale Region in Australia
McLaren Vale is a region entrenched with history, fine wine and fine food. The region consistency produces fine wines from a number of varieties, most importantly Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
Only a half hours drive South of Adelaide is one of Australia’s oldest winemaking regions. Driving over the first row of hills one is met with a vista of undulating vineyards surrounding pretty townships, the backdrop the wave-like South Lofty Ranges rolling to the sea. The township of McLaren Vale is central to this region, with Reynella and Clarendon to the North, Kangarilla on the Eastern Boundary, Aldinga on the coastal edge to the West, and in the South, Mount Compass and Sellicks Hill.
McLaren Vale was named after David McLaren, the Colonial Manager of the South Australia Company who arrived in the colony in 1837 and left in 1840. In 1841, John Reynell planted 500 vine cuttings near the present township of Reynella. Englishman George Pitches Manning established Seaview winery in 1850. Thomas Hardy, a winemaker already growing vines on the outskirts of the young Adelaide City, purchased the Tintara winery from Dr. A. C. Kelly in 1873. Through Thomas Hardy’s innovative ideas and rapid expansion this was considered by many to be the beginning of McLaren Vale’s wine industry. By 1889 more than 7300 acres were under vine and 70 recognised winemakers worked in the colony (including Pirramimma - established in 1892 and still owned by the Johnson family). Much of the award-winning wines produced in the region today come from 100-year old vines. McLaren Vale applied for Geographic Indication in 1995 and was awarded regional status in 1997.
The topography of the region is undulating and thus contains a variety of terroirs. In the East the land rises as high as 320 metres, but the flats mostly swell between 50–100 metres elevation. Different soil types can be found in this region, including terra rossa soils, light loam over clay, rendzina soils, soldolic, and Bay of Biscay soils. The soil type is generally quite poor with much of it sandy with a clay base. Drip irrigation helps where nature is lacking, although about 20% of the regions fruit is retained as “dry-grown” to encourage intense flavours.
The flats of the McLaren Vale are compared often with the Mediterranean climate, warm sunny days with fresh sea breezes from the nearby Gulf of St Vincent to temper high summer heats. Its proximity to the Mount Lofty Ranges sees the cool gully winds fall down from the hills in the late evening and early morning, chilling the grapes to retain crisp acidity and structure. Good winter rainfall (580-700mm) and low relative humidity ensure consistency of ripening and premium quality fruit. Frost is rare, as is rain before vintage. Long dry summers through to late autumn, with a mean January temperature of 21.7ºC and 1920 heat degree days, means McLaren Vale is considered one of the safest wine growing regions in Australia.
