I bought this on a whim last night, drank it without decanting with a meal of potato-leek soup. I'll give you the price at the end of the notes. It's 65/35 Shiraz/Malbec.

-light garnet/brickish red; 3/5 intentsity; very clear
-forward nose of cherry preserves, mild vanilla; with air time the Malbec comes out with tar and molasses
-fruit forward attack, initially fairly simple red berries and an almost butterscotch quality, evolves to produce peppery notes and the distinctive Malbec tar-y flavor; very slightly on the sweet side; somewhat mild but well-integrated acids and tannins; light to medium mouthfeel; surprisingly lingering, slightly hot finish.

Overall, a fun little bottle of wine and a successful blending of these varieties. It's not super complex, nor is there enough structure to compliment most foods, but works quite nicely as a quaffing wine. I'd give it an 85 to 86, and for $6.50, it's definitely going to be on my table a couple more times this year!

I'd be curious to see what this producer would do with a 100% Malbec bottling. Anyone had any experience with "Robert's Rock"?

Cheers!

i have never even heard of "robert's rock", but this sounds like an interesting blend & a pretty good wine for $6.50. is this a south african wine?

Yep- it's South African. I just tried surfing Robert's Rock website for more info: they're launching a new site next week, and understandably so. The old site (still online) is slow and tacky as hell- more or less worthless. I get the sense that this is, from start to finish, a budget operation making popular, budget wines. Because of this, I wouldn't expect great things from their other offerings, but this particular bottling tickled my fancy, particularly for the price. As always, caveat emptor.

i have been experimenting with south african reds lately.rust en vrede mades the best ones i have tried so far. they do have a good website & it is such a beautiful place i want to take a trip.

I've had very few SA reds- they are usually far and few between here in Kansas. In fact, I've never seen Rust en Vrede here, but would love to give it a try. Only recently have I seen a few more SA producers- Simonsig being one of them. I might pick up their Pinotage (2000 Stellenbosch) next...

a great source for sa wines issouthern hemisphere wines although i don't know how much difficulty you have receiving wine shipments in kansas, i have ordered wine from these guys & been very pleased with their pricing & service. they have apparently had some sort of personality conflict with the owner of rust en vrede, however, & are not necessarily the best source for their wines.

A belated thanks, by the way, for the Southern Hemisphere Wines link. I have half a mind to drop them an email and see what they say about shipping to Kansas. I had previously thought that nothing could come in except through a distributor, but Mick at Sterling Fine Wines set me up with a couple of the Buller Muscats apparently without a probem. At least it's possible to ship from NJ to KS...