D’Arenberg’s The Laughing Magpie: Love at First Sip

We first tasted this wine in 2004 and we were instantly smitten. I don’t recall the vintage (it was likely a 2002 or 2003) but I recall my surprise and delight. I had never before tasted a Shiraz blended with a splash of Viognier. Adding this fragrant and full-body white grape to a deep-colored, muscular and spicy Shiraz seemed to me, at the time, a stroke of genius. It still does many years later as we pulled a 2004 out of the cellar.

The 2004 still had the same deep purple color, the same herbal, floral nose I recalled from the earlier vintage. It had the same velvet mouthfeel which I credited to the Viognier which, even in a small dose at 6 percent, took the edge off of a tannic in-your-face McLaren Vale Shiraz. The dark fruits from the Shiraz remained firmly in control on the palate and carried on with spice and tea-like tannins on the finish. It proved to be a great pairing with the chicken curry I had prepared that night.

We were so impressed with 2004 we ordered a bottle of the 2006 at a Valentine’s dinner with our neighbors a few nights later. Again, that impressive deep purple color, same round velvety mouthfeel but this time we tasted more dark chocolate and cherry than in the 2004 which seemed perfect for the occasion as we polished off a second bottle with the pot du crème au chocolate dessert.

I have often wondered how this Australian blend came to be. At first I suspected it might have been a marriage of convenience between a sweet and fragrant young vine Viognier and a curmudgeonly old vine Shiraz. But it turns out this wine was not a hasty blend, but rather a thoughtful and deliberate co-fermentation process that suggests an arranged marriage. No judgment here, as they seem happy together in a marriage that seems to have held up over many good years.