Day 23 Paringa Sparkling Shiraz 2004 of South Austrailia $6.99 at Binny's Beverage Depot

I tried this wine twice at wine tastings at Binny's before buying since it is a sparkling shiraz and shiraz is a dry wine. The man selling the wine described the wine as candy it was so sweet, and both times me and my better half tried the wine we thought it was sweet. I obviously need to put an asterick on the times we tried the wines, at the first tasting it was at one of the last tables and we had tried close to 40 sparkling wines before we got to it, and the second time we tried it at the same time as tasting other sweet sparklings. We thought the wine was very sweet also for a sparkling shiraz. I gave a bottle of this wine to my friend at work, Katie, and she only likes dry wines, so I thought there was a possibility that this choice for her was going to be a bust. However, she opened the wine over New Year's Eve and told me she thought the wine was delicious, but did not elaborate. I asked what others at her party thought about the wine and she didn't know she was celebrating and really did not remember much about the wine at all except that she thought it was good. We opened this wine on Sunday, and it is dry. It is not even close to the candy taste that we thought we were getting. I ate chocolate with the wine which helped, but overall this is a dry sparkling which I am not a big fan. At this price, for a dry sparkling this wine is very good pair for a chocolate dessert. The idea of a making a sparkling wine out of typical dry wine is fun, I am big fan of the bubbles and like the idea of adding another dimension to typically renowned dry wines.