Fusion

No, not a blend of Jazz and Funk, or even something clever with sub-atomic particles, but a fusion nonetheless. I have just checked back through my wines of the week and find I have sampled 144 wines to date and none of them has been from Margaret River, Western Australia. I find this very surprising as it is a region which, to my tastes, produces a consistent high quality and often good value output.

Week F (2021) Xanadu Fusion, Margaret River 2018. M&S £12.

Xanadu is not a winery I have previously come across, but they have an interesting history and plenty of awards to boot.  Started by an Irish immigrant doctor in the late 1970s and later bought by the family behind the wines of Yering Sation in the Yarra Valley, whose Pinot Noir is a particular favourite. 

What is curious is that their website makes no mention, that I can find, of this particular wine. I did wonder if they had discontinued this wine but further investigation reveals it can be bought in Woolworths, just not the erstwhile UK purveyor of pick-and-mix, but the Aussie supermarket that remains very hail and undoubtedly hearty, so perhaps it's just bottled for those outlets rather than direct sales.

I had assumed that Fusion probably referred to a Bordeaux blend of grapes but on reading the back label find it is attributed to wine being the fusion of environment and people, art and science, time and place, and this wine being a blend of all of these elements.

This a slightly romantic bit of marketing guff, but the label needs to be filled with something. Unless of course you are old-school French in which case it might just shrug. Either way, it is a delicious, full-bodied fruit and spice mix with firm but ripe tannins and quite an alcoholic punch at 14.5%, according to the label.

It is quite typical of Cabernet Sauvignon from Margaret River and that is, for me, a good thing. I have fairly frequently bought Vasse Felix's Filius bottling and this compares well to that with the added advantage of being a tiny bit cheaper.

Will I buy it again? Yes.