The Bowen Estate 2018 shiraz is an excellent example of Coonawarra winemaking. I met the winemaker at the Food and Wine Expo a lot of years ago. The winemaker was an excellent guy, I signed up to the Bowen Estate newsletter and have been a consumer of both their shiraz and cabernet since. 

The colour of this shiraz is carpet killer, dark ink as you pour it into the bottle, you don’t want to spill this deep red on anything of value. The deep crimson red reminds me of squid ink, this deep colour with equally deep hue lives up to its colour. The flavours match the colour, that is for sure with violet, licorice, plum and blackberry. Bowen Estate suggests a 6 to 8 year cellaring potential, I opened my bottle in mid 2022 so it had 5 years to develop in the bottle and that development time really smoothed out the tannins and balanced the acid.