'05 Wishing Tree Shiraz, Australia

'05 Wishing Tree Shiraz, Australia ($12.29). At $12.29, this wine was a bargain. Beautiful dark Shiraz color, balanced acidity with aromas of cinnamon roll, licorice and smoked meat. I enjoyed the fruit forward nature of it, especially combined with its dryness. That, along with the tannins made it a very food friendly wine. A tasty wine and a great bargain! At my 89 project party, we tasted it against '05 Jim Barry The Lodge Shiraz ($19.99). Once again, I pinned the 89 on the wrong wine. This example was similar, but had a little less robustness of fruit in the flavors along with an almost brandy-like and licorice-y aromas. Still both were inky dark examples with lots of red and black fruit flavors and nice spice. When planning the party, it was kind of hard to track down "89 point" wines. One thing that was helpful, was http://www.wine.com/. One of the fields they let you search by is "ratings". So, try this at home, but be careful. While it's fun and interesting to track down wine by ratings as an experiment, experiential evidence is a much more rewarding way to find fun, interesting wines.