Simonne

A lovely spiciness with a hint of red berries on the nose makes this wine very fragrant. On the palate it is silky with a hint of sweetness that lingers.

Paired with Sea Salt: Not loving it - chocolate is very tasty but it makes the wine taste acidic.

Pieter

Biscuits, aniseed and nice white pepper on the nose flow to a palate of fair fruit, minerality and a touch of the same biological issue as the Cab-Merlot (acceptable to most people). Good balance with - like the whole range - a very drinkable alcohol level. The gorgeous choc worked well with the wine in the mouth, but cometh the aftertaste, cometh the choc monopoly...

David

A lovely aroma of fruit on the nose, perhaps black cherries and mulberries, with a subtle spiciness to carry it through. On the palate the wine was smooth and well rounded and certainly does not disappoint. When paired with the Lindt Sea Salt chocolate I ended up at the conclusion that the chocolate does not compliment or impair the wine. A lovely wine that you should probably just drink by itself.

Robyn

That this was the flagship blend was readily apparent. Smooth with plums and black pepper the mourvedre added great character and complexity to the easy going fruity shiraz. Whether it's worth the price was hard to tell, coming at the tail end of our longer than usual tasting - and I can see why show wines win shows and when more subtle styles fail, my sense of taste was already a little shakey. That said, I'd be happy to develop a closer acquaintance with this SMV sometime.
The pairing with the Lindt with sea salt was a failure, and a bit of an insult to the wine which turned into a lingering acidic ghost of its previous self. Sigh, loooove Lindt with sea salt!

Ellen

Dark ruby, paler at the rim, this wine has a lovely smoky nose of red fruit and black pepper. The palate is medium- to full-bodied, with chewy tannins that could stand to integrate a bit more, and tasting of plums. I like the wine. I like the chocolate. I do not like them together - a recurring theme of this tasting! The chocolate is too sweet for the wine. It just doesn't work.