Sage Hills Shiraz: What It Is and Which Hampers It Comes In

If you have received a Hampers With Bite wine hamper, there is a good chance the bottle in it was a Sage Hills Shiraz. Enough people have liked it enough to go looking for it afterwards that this page now exists.

Here is what it is, what it goes with, and the honest answer to the question we get asked most about it.

You cannot buy it by the bottle, and that is the short answer

Most people arriving here are searching for a price for a single bottle. There is not one. Sage Hills is one of our own labels, bottled for us to go into gift hampers, and we do not sell it as a standalone bottle through the website.

That is a deliberate choice rather than an oversight. It lets us put a better wine in the box at a given hamper price than we could if the bottle also had to carry retail margin, shelf space and a distributor.

What that means in practice: the cost of the wine is inside the cost of the hamper. The hampers it comes in start in our $30 to $60 band and run up through $60 to $100, and the full list is further down this page.

What it tastes like

It is a warm-climate Australian Shiraz in the style most people picture when they hear the word: dark fruit, a bit of pepper and spice, soft tannins, and not much oak getting in the way. Medium to full bodied without being heavy.

It is built to be approachable rather than challenging, which is the right call for a gift. A hamper bottle has to work for someone whose taste you do not know, opened on an evening you will not be there for. A big, tannic, cellar-me-for-ten-years red is the wrong thing to send a stranger. This is not that.

Serve it slightly below room temperature. Twenty minutes in the fridge before opening does more for an Australian Shiraz in February than any amount of decanting.

What to eat with it

Shiraz wants fat, salt and char. That is most of what turns up on a grazing board, which is why we pack it alongside the things we do.

• Hard and aged cheeses. Cheddar, aged gouda, manchego. The salt cuts the fruit.
• Cured meat. Salami and prosciutto, if you are adding your own.
• Olives and tapenade. Both turn up in the hampers for exactly this reason.
• Anything off a barbecue. Lamb especially, and the charred edges more than the meat itself.
• Dark chocolate. Works better than most people expect, which is why we pair it with chocolate in one of the boxes below.

What to avoid: delicate white fish, anything heavily chilli-hot, and most fresh salads. The wine will simply roll over them.

Which hampers it comes in

Five, at the time of writing. All are in stock.

• Gourmet Red Wine Hamper. The straightforward one: the Shiraz with Mediterranean olives, artisan flatbread, sesame BBQ peanuts and mustard soy crisps. The entry point, and the one we send most of.
• Red Welcome Home Hamper. The Shiraz with a wooden cheeseboard, salted pretzels, mustard soya crisps and a lemon and black tea. Built as a housewarming gift, and the board outlasts everything else in the box.
• Celebrate Shiraz & Chocolates Gift Box. The Shiraz with a Chocolatier Pure Indulgence assortment, in a black magnet box. This is the dark chocolate pairing above, done for you.
• Connoisseur's Wine Collection Hamper. Two bottles: the Sage Hills Shiraz alongside a Barrel & Vine Pinot Grigio, with black olive tapenade, flatbread, beer nuts and chocolate almonds. The one to send when you do not know whether they drink red or white.
• The Christmas Toast Hamper. Both bottles again, with butter shortbread, chocolate roasted almonds, cashew brittle and savoury snacks, in a premium black magnet box.

The rest of the range is in wine hampers and red wine hampers.