ALLOURAN OTHER END OF THE SAWN-OFF

Licorice and peat and stove black make this smell acrid and you'd think sharpish but there's a well of raspberry and redcurrant below with a sort of marshmallow flesh. The flavours do a similarly dainty dance of counterpoint, the allurin carnal bit being a little behind the double-barrel sawnoff she's pointing atcha. 

Them's deadly matching blue-black poles. 

Those velvety peaty tannins are like a good year of Petit verdot: they're about vegetal lignin decay but come served here in a neat crema liqueur restritto, smooth and luxurious. 

Then, as steely as a snaky bottleneck guitar, the acid comes up from the deep. Like fine coffee acid. Forget about it being a blend of the best Bordeaux red varieties. To my things, it's more Italian and high Tuscan in structure. Tomato leaf. Osso bucco with some black olives in the sauce sort of thing. Man, it has that fine cut. 

I was sposed to drink one with Pike but dammit I opened it a couple weeks back before I fell in the Styx and all I got now is a slender memory of it all running down inside me, challenging, sure, crackin the whip, wavin the twellie, but with a wink of softer punishment to come. Which I now enjoy from a second bottle thankyou Mark. Still steely whiprod and hungry but you don't get anything soft from Pike either.

PS: I'm obviously talkin about the Blue Poles Margaret River Allouran 2014 which is a tidy 13.9% alcohol, $30, and perhaps even sold out.