Sellicks Hill Wines Diavolo 2008

A stonking Aussie blend of Shiraz and Cab Sav, apparently a 70/30 blend in that order, so it's good to know the seemly meld for a stonker. This little Mushu has only been in bottle since June, so it has slumbered many years in it's wooden womb. I would have let it sleep longer, and I suggest others should, but sometimes I worry about that bus tomorrow.

Perfume on the nose, and not the kind Aunt Mabel wears, but the natural kind that wafts around the botanical gardens in spring making the birds tweet in the original unlimited way. There is however, a bit of Auntie's guest bedroom in the old farmhouse, the one you loved to sleep in as a kid, with old lacquered up wooden furniture, hints of Uncle's pipe tobacco drifting in from the lounge, and an overall odor of comfort.

On the palate, Auntie has been making marmalade again and there's the caramelized and not quite burnt coating on the bottom of the pot where the sugar ain't really sweet anymore, but is so mouth wateringly good that you have to consider the risk vs reward of trying to get yer tongue to the bottom of that pot. There's also a bit of chocolate chilli sauce, 85% cacao of course, though I doubt Auntie would have approved of that kind of thing.

The acid is lovely and I would have liked it to hang around a bit longer, but if wishes were fishes then we would need better poets and nursery rhymes. The length is pretty good, and the tannins fine and firm.

According to the Macquarie Dictionary, stonkered in Australia can mean drunk, though I was not thinking of that meaning, even if it's a rather obvious outcome with such a fine wine. Relatedly, the verb stonker, used to mean 'to kill' which I think unlikely but we are talking about Diavolo here, and I was using it above in the belief it was a noun anyway. If you're still with me,  I was going more for the British meaning, and because many people from that fine northern land seem have trouble working out the difference between F and TH, I assume they chose stonking rather than thundering when they meant impressive.


There's a dragon on the bottle, I'm not sure why, that's probably because I'm not Italian, even if I do list pizza as my #1 food. At least I think it's a dragon, it could be two dragons, and they could be trying to make a third. I can only assume Diavolo translates to Dirty Dragons.

Highly Recommended++