Tasting note
Colour - Deep blackish ruby red.

Aroma - Wild blackberry, forest fruits, exotic spices and Turkish coffee aromas.

Taste - Full black damson flavours, with heady kirsch, forest floor and campfire aromas.

	Type:Still Red Wine		Country:Australia		Appellation:South Eastern Australia
	Grape Type:Red blend		Drink Before:End of 2010		Body:Rich and Flavoursome
	Alcohol:14.5%		Bottle Size:75cl		Bottle Code:60422

Description
A GREAT red from Bob Berton, in Riverina, New South Wales, and with as much character as the man himself. Bob has been working in the industry for the last eighteen years, gradually working his way up, so that in the last decade he's been in charge of some impressive wineries.

Then, in 2006, he decided to go solo and bought a winery in Riverina, New South Wales. He brought in two young winemakers he'd enjoyed working with before - Belinda Moradin and James Ceccatto - and hasn't looked back since.

The Barbarian is a very unusual combination of Australia's top red grape, Shiraz, with the northern Italian speciality, Barbera. The latter lends lively dark cherry fruit with a nice bite of acidity. There's also a drop of 7% Sangiovese (prized grape of Chianti) and a touch of 3% Cabernet. Perhaps it's of no surprise that small parcels of unusual Italian grapes are cultivated in this corner of Australia. It's been a favourite destination for Italian emigrants since the 1930s.

Bob's comment on this wine was: "To be quite honest the wine is not a brute, like you might expect a Barbarian to be. It's more like a Barbarian's wench - wild and untamed"! Nonetheless, it's a powerful mouthful of dense, ripe black fruits over well-rounded tannins.

Decanter World Wine Awards 2008, United Kingdom

The Barbarian Shiraz Barbera 2007 is available in the following cases: