The Wine Doctor Barossa Valley Shiraz 2017
Varietal: 100% Shiraz
Region: Barossa Valley, South Australia
Price: $24.99/bottle
ABV: 14%
In the glass: Think succulent red & blue fruits, dark chocolate, and a nice framing of autumnal spices.
Why is this special? Up to 100x the amount of Resveratrol than a typical bottle of wine! Plus, it’s made from single-estate fruit.
I’m fairly certain that you’ve heard the saying “A glass of red wine a day is good for you!”. And if we’re being perfectly honest with ourselves, we’ve all wished that wine was genuinely good for us. Fortunately for us all, there’s now an answer to that wish, and it’s a delicious answer at that!
Globally, and especially here in Australia, there is a rapidly growing desire for better health & wellbeing, a mighty admirable goal that everyone should undertake to some extent at the very least. That isn’t always an easy thing to stick with, what with all of the delicious options to choose from these days (there’s a VERY tempting bottle of Maverick Ahren’s Creek Shiraz staring right at me while typing this!). But to save the day, some very skilled ladies and chaps at The Wine Doctor have come to the rescue. They’ve noticed this growing trend, and have seen first-hand the benefits of finding that balance between health and pleasure - and now it’s time for us all to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
The Wine Doctor Estate-Grown Barossa Shiraz 2017 is something of a unique wine to discuss, there’s a couple of things that really set it apart from every other wine out there. But in the glass, it is instantly familiar, a robust Barossa Valley Shiraz through and through. There’s something to be said about always trying out new varietals and new regions, but it’s always a comforting and effortlessly enjoyable experience to drink a familiar wine such as this.
Once in the glass, you’ll be presented with a rich deep purple hue that tells a tale of boldness, juiciness, and downright power that begs to be enjoyed. Dive on in and you’ll find not just that classic upfront Barossa happiness, you’ll also descend into the deep end that’s filled with layers of complexity and length - all the while bundled up within fruity joy.
I could happily talk about this wine as is, and leave it at that. I’d be happy, you’d be happy, and what else do we really need? Well, let me explain a bit more about how The Wine Doctor has revolutionized our understanding of health within the wine industry.
This big, beautiful bottle has an absolute load of Resveratrol (that’s the ‘something good for us’ that people keep talking about). At this point, you might be wondering to yourself what Resveratrol is, and I can help to confirm that it is a polyphenol… Which, quite possibly, hasn’t helped to clear it all up.
Resveratrol is one of the main antioxidants in red wine, and it’s a very special antioxidant. Antioxidants have been shown to provide a huge swathe of health benefits and are no doubt something we’re all familiar with to some extent. But Resveratrol has a few benefits to it that help it stand out as something worth focusing on, and The Wine Doctor has helped provide the very best way to take resveratrol.
A few well-documented benefits of Resveratrol
How Does Resveratrol Work, Exactly?
Without getting too deep into the nitty-gritty bits, it always helps to understand why this or that is good for us. Antioxidants do exactly as they say on the tin, they fight against oxidation - something that causes rust, but also heavily impacts the ageing process for humans. Supplementary vitamins C and E are more well-known examples of antioxidants, though they certainly aren’t the best out there. In fact, they only have the potential to reduce oxidation by up to 20%, while antioxidants found in red wine, like Resveratrol, can reduce oxidation by up to 100%!
I’ve no doubt you’re thinking to yourself that you could game the system, simply take a tablet or two of Resveratrol with your breakfast, then crack open any old bottle of wine. You could do that, but you’d be heavily limiting the effectiveness of Resveratrol! When taken like this, it goes through a lengthy journey to the liver via the gut, and thanks to general digestion and metabolism it ends up having very little left to give once it starts to circulate throughout the cells of the body. Resveratrol is best absorbed directly through the lining of the mouth (that’s the buccal mucosa, in case you want to impress at the next dinner party), helping it to be directly absorbed into the bloodstream where it can get to every cell quickly and efficiently.
Importantly, and a scientifically-backed fact that I’m personally a huge fan of, Resveratrol requires regular consumption to be most beneficial. This is due to the fact that it circulates throughout the body instead of being stored, and so consistency and regular consumption aid in ensuring the body has enough circulating at any given time.
We’re not suggesting to add a bottle of red to your morning smoothie, but a glass or two in the evening is now a genuinely healthy choice. Now, where’s my glass?
- 94 points, Nick Butler
“Archetypal Barossa with its wave of flavour with lashings of vanillin charry oak. In the mix, black plums, licorice and a dash of soy sauce. Full-bodied with the oak holding sway but the tannins are ripe and there's a freshness all through.”
- 93 points, James Halliday
“Archetypal Barossa with its wave of flavour with lashings of vanillin charry oak. In the mix, black plums, licorice and a dash of soy sauce. Full-bodied with the oak holding sway but the tannins are ripe and there's a freshness all through.”