Dark Side of The Moon
One balmy night, about three years ago I bought a dusty bottle from a dusty little bottle store,tucked away in a little nook behind a cranny somewhere at the back of Glebe Point Rd. Hungrier than a harras of horses, my companion and I found a homely BYO Italian place to dine right next door, whereupon the contents of the bottle were sipped greedily between large mouthfuls of fresh wood fired pizza.
At the time I didn’t know whether it was the pizza, or the fact that I was already a little tipsy from the cocktails I’d drunk an hour before, but the wine tasted like a drop of heaven. Magically labelled ‘Dark Side Of The Moon‘, this wine left a mysterious mark on my memory.
I didn’t think I’d ever find the same bottle again – I went back to the same place a few weeks later, only to find they’d run out of stock. I searched for it in other popular liquor stores to no avail. Ironically, the pizza place also closed down a few months later, which was sad because their food had heart, as did the people that worked there.
Fast-forward to a couple of days ago when The Dark Side of The Moon decided to come out from the shadows, and wave at me from the Shiraz isle at non other than Dan Murphy’s. The vintage I’m currently drinking is a 2011, so it’s only aged by a year or so, but it’s as rich and subtle as I remember. It’s made by Claymore Wines, of the Clare Valley in South Australia. Check out their website for more on The Dark Side of The Moon (2010 tasting notes only), and their various other wildly-named varieties. Titles like Black Magic Woman, Saltan’s Swing, and Purple Rain, this winery seems to ooze both intimacy and imagination. I thoroughly look forward to trying some of the varieties…
