Australian shiraz; concentrated, fruit-forward, round and soft.
No rough edges to be found in this wine, and it will only get better over the next 2-3 years.

Somewhat more fruit/less spice than some other shiraz, not to peppery.

Drank it too soon.

rated 88

I agree I drank it too soon also it will probably be best after 2003. I've had two bottles and would rate about the same 88-89.

I've written about this one earlier. I think it offers a great QPR (especially if you pick it up at the NPB Costco, flwino )

Rosemount offers great shiraz for the price.

I love this wine. When you let it decant for awhile, it opens up even better. This is a good wine to get white drinkers over to red. :-)

I ended up buying few cases of this as my "house wine." It helps start to get non-wine appreciaters to appreciate wine. Sometimes. :-D

My favorite wine merchant tells me that he thinks Rosemount releases all their reds too soon, and some of them much too soon. I haven't had all their reds, but I agree with regard to the GSM and Traditional, and disagree with regard to the Grenache/Shiraz and Shiraz/Cabernet.
I've only had one bottle of the 2000 Shiraz, but think it a big improvement over the '99, and maybe the best of the line for the last five or more years. If it improves over the next couple of years, it will be nice stuff indeed. Especially for the price.

This is one of those possibly apocryphal stories that you hear, but a friend of mine who is the wine buyer for a local store says that the diamond series is pretty much a loss leader for Rosemount -- i.e., they don't really make any profit from it b/c it is expensive to produce relative to the price, but they sell it cheap in order to win over the US market. That's why it seems to always be "on sale" -- Rosemount sets a $12.99 retail price, but always gives incentives to the stores to allow them to sell it at $7.99. If that's true, I guess it's a good deal for us, at least until they feel like they have enough market share and jack the price up!

Apocriphal or not, it works. I also used it as introductory Shiraz for my tasting group (all Spaniards); now they'd kill for anything beginning with "A" on the label (funny we're Alsace lovers and Germany in Spanish is 'Alemania').
After Diamond label I went up to GSM, Traditional, Show Reserve, Balmoral (not quite what I expected), and Mountain Blue (glorious). That means I've probably spent $ worth a couple of cases of Diamond label in exploring the rest of the range. Now, if only Helen Turley got news of this story...

You know, the weird thing about it is that I can’t picture Australia as wine country. I’ve never been there, so all I have are these images in my mind from the movies and shows I’ve seen about Australia, and I sort of picture this “Outback” type landscape where nothing much grows except crocodiles, water buffalo and kangaroos. I guess that's like foreigners who think that America is all about mobsters and Mickey Mouse.

Australia equates to Texas for some reason to me. And Texas is not known for its impressive wines (I know, I know, they make a few, but come on, let’s not kid ourselves, it isn’t Grange).

So while I fully appreciate the wonderful wines that vineyards like Rosemount is producing, I just can't seem to picture the country as a whole as "wine country".

Ah well.....

The best vintage of the Diamond Label was the 96 Shiraz. It was a cracker and is still drinking well. Since then, because of the lack of profitability of the line (this came to me from the CD manager in McLaren Vale) the quality of the line has had to been down graded.

So whilst the 2000 may be good, its no where near as good as say the 96 and earlier vintages.

Cheers
Ric

Just had a bottle of the 1998 Rosemount Shiraz McLaren Vale-Langhorne Creek Show Reserve with some grilled filet mignon, sauteed mushrooms with a bit of the shiraz.

This shiraz is a bit more refined than the diamond label, but exhibits many of the same excellent attributes with a bit more structure and fruit. Still, at about twice the price of the diamond label, I was still thinking about what great QPR the diamond label gives.

Rosemount makes good juice. Period. This is crowd pleasing, palate pleasing and wallet pleasing.

And girlfriend pleasing.

Update:

This wine is smoothing out, but still needs time in bottle to open up fully.

If you ask me, and I know you didn't but I'll tell you anyway....

The more I think about it... this wine is really different than it was just a 10 months ago.... Maybe my palate has changed... but my rating on this guy is going down from 91'ish to 88'ish. I just don't consider it an "excellent" wine now, but it sure is very good.

Still nicely dark purple color, with nice clean edges.. Still lots of cherry, but now thereseems to be more of an earthy quality to this wine I once thought was just a big cherry bomb.

It's almost TOO smooth...but after being open for 5 hours in my big surface area decanter... it started to get that needed edge back. Before I didn't notice the slight herbal quality to this wine, but it's more pronounced now.

Anyhow, I still have about a little more than a case of this left. I think I'll start bringing this to more parties where it'll be more appreciated.

I'm spoiled with the MP and Paringa!

Rothko,
The areas that produce wine in Aussie are large but are a mere speck in the total land mass of Aussie. Most of Australia is impossible to grow anything but tumbleweeds, kangaroo's and big rocks. It really is dramatic and well worth having a look at.

So in a sense you are accurate with your description.

The crocks mostly inhabit the northern districts cause its way to cold down south (hence the Great White Sharks).

The areas that produce wine are often more southerly and consequently much more lush than one would expect. They are a little differant than most wine producing regions because they are often in rolling hills as opposed to mountainous regions (with one or two exceptions.).

The Australian version of a valley is quite unique. You can often only see one side of the valley due to the distances involved, while the other side is some three hundred kilometers in the opposite direction.

The distances in Aussie are huge. I know the US is big but Australia is just vast. There is a saying about Aussie. Birds fly over it upside down because the view is more interesting.

I disagree with that sentiment but its huge and although the wine regions are big they are so samll in comparison to the rest of the country.

Rosemount Diamond Label IMHO is one of the main reasons I consider Aussie wine good QPR. You can find it in easily here all super markets and it ranges between 8.5 USD to 14 USD here in non wine country Singapore where is no local production to compete with so to speak. I ahve been trying to look for the Paringa and MP but not as easily
accessible in this part of the world.

Pick any bottle be it Cabs or Shiraz or blends it seldoms disappoints.

Cheers,
LRnW

I agree with TORB that the 96 is better than recent vintages but it is still QPR at these prices.

Cheers,
LRnW

Jeremy,

It certainly sounds like a fascinating place. Having lived in Texas for a few years, I can appreciate the "vastness" aspects.

Still like that Rosemount shiraz!