I also have to put in a word for the sommelier, who gave brilliant advice all the way through the meal and pulled off a particularly clever juxtaposition between a rosé made out of shiraz and a big Australian red made from the same grape.
The Iranian grape is so good for making spicy wine that Australian Shiraz, sometimes known as Syrah, is made from the same grape that grows in Iran's southern city of Shiraz, which gave the wine its name.
These wines, made from the same grape as Beaujolais, are lively and fresh yet with a mineral earthiness that makes them interesting.
Each was made from the same grape variety, pinot noir.
Made with the same grape as mourvèdre and a whopping rich, porty 14.5% abv, it bears comparison with amarone at twice the price.
You can offer a progression of wines if you like, beginning with a dry white like the Beckett's Flat semillon from Australia, made from the same grape as dry white Bordeaux.
It's the reason that, say, a peppery, sinewy syrah from the relatively cool northern parts of France's Rhône Valley is very different from the butch, inky styles made from the same grape in the heat of the Barossa Valley in Australia.
The wines, which are made of the same grape (it's native to Croatia, where it's called Crljenak Katelanski), offer contrasting, yet equally enjoyable, performances.
Even within Oregon, wines made from the same grape variety grown in Umpqua Valley taste different from those of the Willamette Valley.
Think of it more as a youthful cousin of Barolo, made with the same grape varietal, picked from vineyards in the Barolo region with an average vine age of 35 years.
