2014 Glaetzer Shiraz "Amon-Ra" 750 ml

SMOKING Deal on Deity of Down Under Shiraz

We’ve rewritten this intro six times, trying to find the right words to convey just how rare today’s offer is. Ben Glaetzer’s Amon-Ra is the greatest and most sought-after Shiraz ever to come out of Australia. Sublime black-fruit richness with chiseled, miraculously age-worthy, Northern Rhône cut. This Barossa Valley brilliance is so famous that it usually sells out pre-release every year at $110 a pop.

A change in importers and allocations created an opening, and we didn’t hesitate jumping through it. We came away with these 125 cases of the 2014 Amon-Ra at $68 per bottle. That’s 38% OFF for the wine that Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate declared “a great contender for wine of the vintage!” before pouring on a scorching 96+ points. This is the deal of a lifetime and a price point you will never see again for the biggest, baddest red in all of Oz.

Ben Glaetzer’s German ancestors settled in Australia’s cool-climate Barossa Valley in the late 19th century, and went on to become some of the earliest recorded viticulturists in the area. Ben inherited the business from his father in the early 2000s and his Amon-Ra label landed with a cannonball smash.

In ancient Egypt, Amon-Ra was believed to be the divine king, the god of gods. The wine named for him has carved out a similar distinction in the pantheon of Australian Shiraz. While lesser incarnations are often overly concentrated, showing too little natural acidity, Glaetzer’s Amon-Ra achieves the awesome feat of balancing tremendous freshness and power with astonishing cellaring potential.

2014 was a rollercoaster year in the Barossa Valley. The growing season saw early, promising spring rains that replenished thirsty soil, leading to healthy canes and excellent initial canopy development. Then two setbacks occurred which left some winemakers on the verge of writing the vintage off. In October, a massive frost set in overnight, causing widespread fruit damage and loss. In late January, extreme heat spikes threatened to derail ripening. Only Glaetzer’s rigorous vineyard management and some serendipitous mid-February precipitation allowed the winemaker and his team to coax the fruit through the tricky weeks. By the time that picking rolled around in March, the grapes were some of the most spectacularly rich and concentrated that Glaetzer had ever seen. The only issue was how little there was to go around, with yields at well under a ton per acre.    

Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate gushed over its aromas of “blackberry, blackcurrant and licorice,” coupled with “dark chocolate, cigar boxes, fertile earth and baking spices,” and was equally wowed by its “concentrated, muscular blackberry and earth flavors with plenty of freshness and a beautiful backbone” — all before declaring it “a great contender for the wine of the vintage!”

Not since the Phillies traded Juan Samuel to the Mets in return for Lenny Dykstra AND Roger McDowell has there been a deal where you get so much for giving so little. $110 on release. $68 — the best price in the USA — thanks to a change in importers and our opportunistic grab. This is an absolutely SMOKING offer, considering that the 2017 Amon-Ra stock is literally already spoken for. Shipping included on 2. These 125 cases will be gone before the sun rises on the Barossa Valley.