Wine of the Week ... Yalumba The Signature

For this week’s wine of the week, I would like to talk about Yalumba's The Signature. We were so blessed to have the wonderful Jane Ferrari join us last week at our Birtinya Cellars opening and showcase this amazing wine, so I thought I would say thanks by naming this our wine of the week.

It all started with Sir Robert Menzies, who in the early 1960’s declared Yalumba’s claret the best red he had ever tasted. Claret at the time being classed as a dry red wine with a firm finish (meaning it could be made from what the maker felt like). So, on the back of this Wyndham Hill Smith, the head of the Yalumba family at the time, decided that the best barrels of his Cabernet and Shiraz would be put aside to make an exceptional wine and with the 1962 vintage that wine was named The Signature.

Each vintage would recognise someone who lives and breathes the culture of Yalumba, a contract between the world’s wine lovers and Yalumba’s winemakers, signed with the name of a true believer. The Signature is a celebration of wine and people – more than 50 vintages, 50 names and 50 stories – encapsulated in one historic Cabernet & Shiraz.

Since 1962, more than 50 signatories have been recognised, with their name and story on the bottle, for their hard work, inspiration, dedication and that most old-fashioned of virtues – loyalty.

This wine has always been made using the very best of cabernet and shiraz that Yalumba produce. As quoted from Jane Ferrari (winemaker at Yalumba) “the cabernet provides this amazing structure almost the backbone of the wine, whilst the shiraz has this gorgeous juicy fruit that sits beautifully on that framework”.

Yalumba has been around for almost 160 years and have some of their very oldest grape vines still producing fruit.  This wine comes from vine plantings as old as 1925, 1935 and 1945.  This makes the fruit super concentrated and dense allowing for a full bodied beautiful red wine.

This wine opens with perfumed fruits, showing pretty blue exotic florals and cranberry with milk chocolate and liquorice depth. Very stylish, very approachable and very drinkable.  Decant and enjoy with a char-grilled rump or eggplant steak with all the trimmings.