Australian wine really is growing up.

Every day it seems I encounter yet another example of a restrained, elegant wine that is a roo’s leap away from the oak bombs that took the world’s supermarket shelves by storm a couple of decades ago, even if they didn’t wow the critics or more discerning wine drinkers.

The Adjenda 2005 – a shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and malbec blend – is one such wine. It has a dark, intense scarlet color along with a powerful, plummy richness that reminds me of dark cherries. Now this is not exactly uncharacteristic of Oz reds. But what marks Adjenda out – apart from it’s denied-in-Scrabble name – is that this ripe fruitiness is balanced by a bracing acidity which keeps the whole complex assemblage in harmony, and prevents the wine from tipping off the edge into the seemingly bottomless trough of over-cooked new world reds.

The fruit is sourced from Langhorne Creek, located just south of Adelaide on the  Fleurieu Peninsula, an area that boasts a surprisingly cool climate thanks to the maritime influence. As Adjenda’s importer, The Wine Angel, explained to me “It’s a lot easier to make balanced wine in Langhorn than further north in Barossa.”

It was a little tight at first – it is, after all, still young for such an ambitious wine – but after a couple of hours breathing it opened up beautifully revealing teasing hints of earthiness and other darker pleasure to come for those with patience to wait ten years.

But do not be put off by this broad time horizon. Adjenda represents that Holy Grail of 21^st century winemaking, a wine that can be drunk with great pleasure today – with an hour’s decanting – and that will improve marvelously with age too.

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To find this wine near you try www.wine-searcher.com.