An oddball wine from Down Under is tonight’s random tipple. I don’t remember buying this, but I’m almost certain it was in my first shipment from the Wall Street Journal wine club. That means it cost approximately negative two dollars after introductory offers…so my expectations were dialed down low.
The Black Stump is a blend of 60% Durif (that’s Aussie for Petite Sirah) and 40% Shiraz. I took a whiff of the cork (well, the plastic stopper–this is an Australian wine) and came up with…Dr. Pepper!?
It can be hard to explain Dr. Pepper to non-Texans. But let me try. It’s a brown, lightly carbonated soft drink currently made by the Keurig/Green Mountain/Dr. Pepper/Snapple beverage giant. It famously contains 23 flavors–but nobody knows for sure what they are. Unlike Coke and Pepsi, it’s not citrusy. To me, the most noticeable aromas in Dr. Pepper are prune, vanilla, and cinnamon with a cherry-candy or bubble-gum aftertaste.
The FDA has ruled that legally speaking, Dr. Pepper is not a cola, nor a fruit-flavored soda, nor a root beer. Instead, it exists in its own namesake category, “Pepper soda,” which also includes knockoffs like Coca-Cola’s Pibb Xtra. But…I’m going to defy the regulators and my Texas roots and say Dr. Pepper is basically a cola. A nasty one.
Texans are crazy for Dr. Pepper, which is headquartered in Plano. The soft drink’s actual ingredients are secret…and yet Dr. Pepper superfans are certain they can tell when the formula has been tinkered with. No Texas restaurant dares not serve the soda. Whataburger has a Dr. Pepper shake with a devoted following. And several cruise lines that otherwise have exclusivity deals with Coca-Cola are willing to risk Coke’s wrath by stocking Dr. Pepper on cruises departing from the Port of Galveston–or else, Texans might mutiny and start throwing people overboard.
Anyway, my point is that The Black Stump red blend kind of smells like Dr. Pepper. And while the combination of cooked fruit, baking spice, and vanilla are strange and cloying in a soda, they’re quite delicious in a wine.
If there’s not 23 flavors in this wine, there’s almost that many. It has, unfortunately, a bitter, metallic aftertaste that one taster compared to a mouthful of pennies and another to wet twigs. But it also manages a kaleidoscopic performance of greatest hits from the repertoire of Aussie wines. Depending on which way you turn the glass, you might detect notes of allspice, cloves, licorice, eucalyptus, purple flowers (violet and pansy), blueberry, and plum pudding.
The palate is not able to follow that opening act and collapses into a mess of cooked fruit. It finishes with noticeable sweetness, followed by a gut-punching amount of alcohol.
I realize that what I really have against Dr. Pepper is that it has no alcohol to balance out its sticky-sweetness. A little dryness really improves the taste, and I marvel that I never tried to mix DP with vodka back in college. In The Black Stump, that same prunes-n-spices profile successfully evokes sweet mulled wine–or Shiraz-inflected fortified wine, which I’m really quite fond of.
Struggling to remember where this strange bottle came from, I start googling. It’s a product of Casella Family Wines of South Eastern Australia, makers of the high-volume Yellow Tail brand. Wines under their Black Stump label seem to be mainly distributed through wine club subscriptions, including Laithwaites, NPR, Omaha Steaks–and yes, Wall Street Journal Wine.
In conclusion, this wine is fine. I wouldn’t seek it out–but I also won’t be relegating it to a pasta sauce (it’s too weird). Just as some people choose Diet Dr. Pepper as a healthier option than sugary soda, I will consider drinking strange Shiraz blends as a lower-alcohol alternative to a nightcap of Penfolds Port.
Bottle: The Black Stump Durif-Shiraz (2022)
Variety: Durif (60%), Shiraz (40%)
ABV: 14.5%
Suggested retail: $15.99
My rating: 6.5 (out of 10)
Further reading:
Delish: It’s 2023 And We Still Don’t Know What’s In Dr. Pepper
Review disclosure: I was not compensated or provided any free products for this review. Opinions expressed on The Wine Fairy blog are entirely my own.
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