An intriguing red blend of five varieties from Australia's most famous wine region.
46% Shiraz, 20% Mourvèdre, 15% Grenache, 17% Tempranillo and 2% Carignane. SRP of $17, but can be found as low as $11.99. Sample received courtesy The Hess Collection for review purposes.
From the bottle:
"Layers is an exciting blend of complementary red wine varieties which produce a richly flavoured wine that is intriguingly simple, yet beautifully complex. Grown throughout Australia's famous Barossa Valley, the highly rated 2008 vintage has an excellent structure and shows layers of rich ripe dark forest fruit flavours and a long luscious finish. Layers is particularly suited to highly flavoursome foods such as hearty casseroles and spicy lamb sausages. A highly versatile wine to grace any table or any occasion. 14.5% Alcohol."
The 2008 Peter Lehmann Layers Barossa red wine exhibits aromas of plum, brown sugar and ripe, dark fruit. It tastes of plum and dark berry flavor but is not as fruity as I was expecting. This is a smooth wine with a bit of a graphite/flinty quality to it. It ends with a medium length finish with a little spice. It really opened up nicely with some air and was even better on day 2.
Just as the label says, this is a wine that at first seems quite simple, but really has a lot of different layers to it, which I found quite intriguing -- the more you drink, the more you think. It's not everyday that you find a wine with a blend of 5 different grapes, especially these five, so it's worth a try based on that alone, but it actually tastes quite nice too!
See a listing of local retailers selling this wine here.
Overall Rating: 7.0
