The 2005 Eric Stevens Purbrick Shiraz is 18 years old at this juncture, and it is noticeably more primal and primary than the 2004 tasted beside it. You get boysenberry, blood plum, blackberry and dark chocolate in the mouth. The palate doesn't have the beguiling, pluming tannins of the 2004, but it does have buoyancy in the fruit. So, you take one over the other, I suppose. As with the previous vintage, this is very elegant and restrained. Notes of eucalypt, menthol and the Australian bush in summer emanate from this glass.

3 At six years of age, this wine shows finely integrated fruit and oak, with the two merging seamlessly into shadings of cedar, meat, spice cake and leather. It’s full bodied and intense, solidly built; firm without being tough and crisp without being hard-edged. Drink now–2020. ——J.C.(11/1/2011)—— 91