The Leasingham Bin 61 (along with the Jacob's Creek Reserve) was one of my favourite Australian shirazes -- a consistent benchmark, both in price and quality, for the full-bodied fruit forward style that made Aussie shiraz famous. Then Wine Spectator gave the 2002 vintagte at score of 75 - terrible, in other words. "Strong gamy flavors pervade this one" was all they said. Even though I'd liked the wine for years, I never even tried the 2002, just because of that score. But a friend bought a bottle and last night he brought it out of the cellar, as the second wine of the evening. We didn't plan to enjoy it; we just wanted to see how bad wine with a score of 75 really was. And guess what? It was a very good, full-bodied, fruit forward classic Aussie shiraz! I know I am not a professional wine taster, but in no possible world does this wine deserve a score of 75. No gamy flavours at all. All I can think is that they got a bad bottle and didn't try a second. There's a lesson - shame on me for trusting Wine Spectator so blindly that I didn't even try a bottle of one of my favourite wines. Now I don't have any in the cellar, and I wish I had a case. And NB Liquor doesn't carry it any more - I hope there's no connection to that 75 score.
Price: Approx $25
Value: 4/5
Score: 89
Tasted: August 2008
ANBL UPC: No longer listed
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Actually, we didn't rely only on the WS rating - we also knew at least one person who tasted it and confirmed the WS rating. But I agree that the 2002 was excellent when we tasted it recently.
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