Whitey thinks Tim Smith has turned to blacksmith, and his anvil’s ringing out some true black beauties.
Tim Smith Barossa Mataro Grenache Shiraz 2013
$28; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; 94 points
Smithy loves the deep Mataro-dominant wines of Bandol, on France’s sunny Mediterranean coast between Marseille and Toulon. It’s called Mourvèdre there. Close your eyes, and a bottle of this works nearly as well as a plane ticket. I do believe I can smell the red Sahara blowing in across the ocean and a warm waft of Provence lavender coming in from the other side. In the middle, it’s all deep and glowering and chocolaty, with a blacksmithed vortex that sucks at the helpless traveller. I don’t mean to lay it on too thick, but the farther in you go it actually smells more and more like the leather apron of the smithy, with all that glowing coke and red soft steel ringing away on the anvil. It’s as prickly and acrid as much as blackberry pie. The palate is sublimely fine, slippery and supple after all that sinister gravity, with just a whisper of very fine coal-dusty tannin. It seems there are no edges to cling to. Which suits me, especially if there’s a stack of big field mushrooms and black Russian tomatoes steaming on the toast, dribbling beneath a shiny port and cream reduction, black pepper everywhere. This makes surrender a delight. It’s a third the price of a good Bandol, and a tiny fraction of the cost of that air ticket. Be quick! Sublime in as many ways as I can think, and believe me, my sodden old brain has spread so wide it’s dribbling off the edges of the plate.
Tim Smith Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2012
$85; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; 94++ points
The penny-wise red perve might well wonder how the extra spend can buy a mere brace of plus symbols, but given that perfect seal and the sheer intensity of this fruit, each of those little symbols indicates another decade of increasing delight. It’s all blackberry and anvil again, but darker and deeper, and it seems to make standing impossible, its gravity being overwhelming. It’s unctuous and viscous and devilishly slick; long and lingering and reluctant to leave, and it’s one of the only things with the power to bring you straight back from Bandol to the best of the top Barossa in a magical snap. Now that Smithy finally has himself his own proper winery in Beckwith Park, he seems to have found a bold new confidence. I think that even in their infancy these two reds are his best release yet. Which is saying something. See? I didn’t mention one motorcycle! A triumph.
