Tim Smith has announced that he’s leaving Chateau Tanunda to concentrate full-time on his own label. Good news for Tim Smith wines, I’d reckon. Old-fashioned Barossan shiraz. Loaded with coffeed oak and full of blackberried fruit flavour. It’s got a bourbon-and-cola sweetness going on and it feels thick and smooth on your tongue. It’s matured in French oak but it tastes like American oak; it’s got lots of that high-toast, vanilla-and-coffee character to it. Regardless, it’s a very good version of the big fruit-and-oak Barossan red style. What I appreciate most is the way the fruit flavour pushes on through the finish, undimmed by the warmth of the alcohol.