My husband and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary this weekend at one of our favorite restaurants, Ian's Tropical Grill. Since we were celebrating and we were ready to be a little daring with our wine selection, we opted for some sparkling Shiraz. It was the first time either of us had tried something like this and we were pleasantly surprised, so I did a little research on this interesting combination of red wine and bubbly.

This is from A Taste of Australian Wine 'Sparkling Reds:'

Sparkling red wines, or as they used to be known in Australia - Sparkling Burgundies, are a particular love of mine. I'm not sure about the US experience, but many in Australia were turned off these wines due to drinking light red concoctions tasting like sweet lolly water sold here in the 1960's and 1970's with names like "Cold Duck". These usually tasted like a blend of cough mixture and boiled lollies and have put a generation off what are very traditional Australian wine styles that are indeed world class.

So what are we talking about with Sparkling red wines from Australia? Well, we are talking about quality red wines made in the same way as Champagne - that is, bottle fermented, aged on lees, then liqueured and left to develop in the bottle. However, instead of using Chardonnay and Pinot as the base wines, they use quality red wines.

These styles exist elsewhere in the world, notably in the Burgundy and Loire regions of France, but not in any quantity, or with the same quality. Only here in Australia do these tend to be taken seriously, indeed they are very much in fashion currently, and the range and variety are now truly exceptional.

This is just a snippet of the article. If you've been curious about this vino, it's definitely worth a full read.