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Wine Recommendation
La Frenz Winery
2005 Shiraz(Okanagan Valley)
The owners of La Frenz, Jeff and Niva Martin, are Australians, so it is natural that they would call this red Shiraz, not Syrah. As a graduate of Charles Sturt University and a former senior winemaker at McWilliams, Jeff is immersed in the bold Australian way of styling this variety.
But there’s a caveat. This is not a jammy Australian Shiraz but rather one that expresses the cool-climate terroir of the Okanagan’s Naramata Bench, where La Frenz grew these grapes. The hallmark of Bench Shiraz is a sensuous elegance. This wine, quite dark in colour, begins with gamy, earthy aromas of plums and cherries, with a hint of pepper. All of this is echoed in flavours of spicy plums and blueberries, supported by subtle French oak notes. The finish is lingering. This is a very appealing wine. 90 points.
Reviewed October 24, 2007 by John Schreiner.
Other reviewed wines from La Frenz Winery
The Wine
Winery: La Frenz Winery |
The Reviewer
John Schreiner
John Schreiner has been covering the wines of British Columbia for the past 30 years and has written 10 books on the wines of Canada and BC. He has judged at major competitions and is currently a panel member for the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards of Excellence in Wine. Both as a judge and as a wine critic, he approaches each wine not to find fault, but to find excellence. That he now finds the latter more often than the former testifies to the dramatic improvement shown by BC winemaking in the past decade. |