Monthly Archives: July 2013

Wine review — Jim Barry, Port Phillip Estate, Peter Lehmann, By Farr, Cullen and Lowe

31 July 2013People, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Jim Barry Lodge Hill Riesling 2013 $21–$23
Jim Barry Lodge Hill vineyard, Clare Valley, South Australia
A gold medal and trophy at the royal Queensland wine show underlines the drink-now, fruity, dry appeal of Jim Barry Lodge Hill Riesling. It’s probably a tad less in-your-face fruity than the trophy-winning 2012 vintage and therefore potentially of even wider appeal. At a recent office tasting, even the red wine diehards slurped it down and enquired where they might buy it. It should be available in any decent liquor store. 2013 looks to be another excellent Clare Valley riesling vintage.

Port Phillip Estate Quartier Pinot Noir 2012 $28
Mornington Peninsular, Victoria
Port Phillip Estate (including Kooyong Estate) recently released three pinot noirs, two from the cold, wet 2011 vintage and this crowd pleaser from the more benign 2012 season. Port Phillip Estate 2011 ($38) and Kooyong Estate 2011 ($53) offer lean and taut, silky expressions of the cool season. But Quartier 2012 takes us into plump, juicy fruity territory – ripe, round delicious pinot flavours with sufficient tannin structure and savouriness to count as a real red wine – an irresistible one at that.

Peter Lehmann Drawcard Shiraz 2010 $21–$23
North-western ridge, Barossa Valley, South Australia
Peter Lehmann died in June, so Drawcard shiraz reminds us of the Barossa wines he loved and championed. And of course they’re still being made under his name by long-serving winemaker Ian Hongell. Sourced from old vines in the north-western Barossa, Drawcard shows a particularly robust face of Barossa shiraz – deeply coloured, with powerful, ripe fruit and particularly firm tannins; quite a contrast to the often soft, tender styles of the region.

Shiraz by Farr 2010 $55
Geelong, Victoria
This is the sort of shiraz you’d expect from one of Australia’s most accomplished pinot makers. Grown in the cool, maritime climate of Geelong and co-fermented with a splash of the white viognier, it’s fragrant and lively, medium bodied, peppery and spicy and smoothly, gently textured. We tasted then drank Shiraz by Farr at a leisurely pace following a couple of top-end pinots. This proved a delicious segue into a fine, firm old Bordeaux, Chateau Pichon-Lalande 1986.

Cullen Mangan Vineyard Merlot Malbec Petit Verdot 2012 $29
Cullen Mangan vineyard, Margaret River, Western Australia
Vanya Cullen’s new red, from the family’s Mangan vineyard, captures the rich, ripe flavours and abundant tannins of these three Bordeaux varieties. As only about four fifths of wine is matured in oak (seasoned) and for only eight months, vibrant fruit dominates the aroma and flavour of very deeply coloured, crimson-rimmed wine. The vibrant berry flavours come with a touch of leafiness. And the full-flavoured, fruity palate carries quite a load of assertive but soft tannins. The wine will probably age well for many years.

Lowe Louee Nullo Mountain Pinto Grigio 2012 $25
Louee vineyard, Nullo Mountain, Rylestone, NSW
David Lowe’s unusually aromatic pinot grigio comes from a site he claims “as the coldest vineyard in Australia in the 2012 vintage”. Assuming there’s sufficient heat to ripen the berries, cool or cold is good for pinot grigio. Cool ripening intensifies fruit flavour, retains acidity and generally means greater fragrance and a more elegant, delicate wine style – characteristics seldom associated with pinot gris/grigio. Lowe’s is a delicious expression of the variety – aromatic, lively on the palate with vibrant pear-like flavour and crisp, dry finish without the hardness sometimes seen in the variety.

Truffle and wine moments — Canberra Times truffle dinner 13 August 2013

31 July 2013WineChris Shanahan

I love wine. But I’ve never felt a wine moment as profound as that first encounter with truffle. In winter 2009, local truffle grower, Wayne Haslam, arrived at Chateau Shanahan, beaming with a secret knowledge. He knew the coming effect on me – and a day later, on the Food and Wine team – of the knobbly black nugget inside the clip-lock bag he held.

I can’t describe that first sniff better than Elizabeth Luard did in Truffles (London, 2006), “I breathe deeply. The fragrance almost overpowers me, filling my nostrils with a scent so exciting, so overwhelming, so astonishingly familiar that my head swims and I have to sit down on a tree-stump… What exactly is it that makes the scent of a truffle so thrilling? Well. The chemists tell us it’s the pheromones, the stuff that tells Noireau [her companion’s truffle-sniffing dog] that the neighbour’s bitch is on heat. There’s no other way to explain the effect. It reminds some of us – not all, no doubt – of those nights when we held our first lover in our arms and learned, once and for all, what this thing they talked about in books was all about. Sex, actually – but all new-minted and carrying with it none of the baggage of later years. I breathe deeply again. These words spring to mind: sweet almonds, ripe grapes, thyme, rosemary, juniper, the scent of heather-roots, bonfire embers after rain”.

That sweet, pungent, earthy, sometimes cloying, sexy, power of the raw, fresh black truffle subsides to greater or lesser degree in food. But wherever the black truffle appears, it’s too exotic and expensive to be anything but centre stage.

Therefore the wine selection for our coming truffle dinner, doesn’t compete with the food. Pairs of wines with each course offer comparisons of Australian and imported styles that should sit comfortably with the food.

We selected local wines from the list at pop-up restaurant, 10 Yards, added Bryan Martin’s Ravensworth sangiovese, at Food and Wine editor Kirsten Lawson’s request, and then brought in an imported equivalent to accompany each.

The wine pairings place a local wine against wines from the homes of those varieties – sangiovese from the Chianti Classico zone Tuscany, Italy; a viognier-roussanne-marsanne blend from the southern Rhone Valley, France; and a sweet riesling from the impossibly steep slopes of the Goldtropfchen vineyard, opposite the town of Piesport on Germany’s Mosel river.

SPARKLING WINE

Centenary of Canberra Chardonnay Pinot Noir Cuvee Centenary
In 2008 a group of local winemakers produced a shiraz and a riesling for release in Canberra’s centenary year, 2013. Then in 2011, the group decided to add a sparkler to the list. Our local bubbly specialist, Greg Gallagher, made and blended the wine with Jeir Creek’s Rob Howell. It’s an excellent wine, getting better with age and makes a good starter for the truffle dinner.

WHITES – a Canberra Rhone-inspired blend and an original

Collector Lamp Lit Canberra District Marsanne 2011
Alex McKay’s marsanne a pleasing and sophisticated wine – savoury, richly textured (but not fat) and underpinned by a gently, citrusy varietal flavour, subtly meshed with a pleasing character derived from barrel ageing on yeast lees. The slightly fuller and rounder (but now sold out 2010) indicates benefits from bottle ageing – and that this could be a slow and graceful evolution. McKay says both wines underwent full malo-lactic fermentation, adding texture, and the 2011 contains a splash each of viognier and roussanne.

Cotes du Rhone Blanc (Guigal) 2009
Leading wine producer, Guigal, makes a fresh and fruity style by fermenting this blend at low temperature in stainless steel tanks. While Guigal, like McKay, also uses viognier, roussanne and marsanne, viognier, rather than marsanne, leads the blend. And, of course, there’s no oak influence.

REDS – sangiovese from Canberra and Tuscany

Ravensworth Le Querce Canberra Sangiovese 2012
Le Querce is packed with the black-cherry wholesomeness of Italy’s ubiquitous red grape variety, sangiovese. The vibrant cherry-like varietal flavour comes with attractive herbal, spicy, savoury notes. A combination of acid and fine, persistent tannins provide vibrance and structure to the medium body.

Chianti Classico Peppoli (Antinori) 2009
Here the 600-year-old producer Antinori presents a modern face of Chianti Classico. The fruit’s bright and fresh and the inclusion of merlot and shiraz with the local sangiovese adds flesh and ameliorates Chianti’s savoury-to-firm tannins. A couple of years bottle age adds to the contrast between Peppoli and the fresh, young, screw-cap sealed Ravensworth.
A STICKY END

Barton Estate “Elva” Late Picked Riesling 2008
In the cool, moist mornings of a Canberra autumn Barton Estate’s riesling developed noble rot. Ultimately the uber-ripe, shrivelled berries made the estate’s first luscious dessert wine.

Piesporter Goldtropfchen Riesling Auslese 2005 (Reichsgraff von Kesselstatt)
Compare a Canberra “auslese” style with the original from Germany’s Mosel river. This is probably as close as we’ll get to truffle-like experience with wine. The south and south-east facing Goldtropfchen vineyard slopes steeply away from the Mosel on one of its extreme bends, near the ancient town of Piesport. President John F Kennedy reportedly enjoyed the 1959 vintage kabinett at a 1963 breakfast in Berlin. And in June this year Berliners presented President Barack Obama with a bottle of Reichsgraff von Kesselstatt estate’s 2011 spaetlese riesling from the same vineyard.

See good food for details of the dinner and how to book.

Wine review — Peter Lehmann, Port Phillip Estate and Cappa Stone

28 July 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Peter Lehmann Drawcard Barossa Shiraz Mataro 2010 $20–$25
It’s hard to believe now that so much of the Barossa’s wine once disappeared anonymously into multi-regional blends. But the area’s recognition as one of the world’s great makers of shiraz, grenache and mourvedre (aka mataro) opens up the palette of wine styles available. Increasing numbers of winemakers now present the product of single vineyards or sub-regional blends. In this instance Peter Lehmann’s Ian Hongell delivers the earthy power of shiraz and mataro from the Barossa’s north-western ridge – a generous, sweet-fruited wine, principally shiraz, with the fragrance, spice and grippy tannins of mataro.

Port Phillip Estate Quartier Mornington Peninsular Arneis 2012 $28
A number of Australian winemakers, principally in Victoria’s King Valley, now cultivate arneis, a white variety first documented in Piemonte, Italy, in the fifteenth century. Port Phillip Estate’s version, from a vineyard at Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula, presents a lively, full-flavoured expression of the variety, with unique, sappy, slightly pear-like flavours and savoury, vigorous dry finish. Winemaker Sandro Mosele writes, “[the wine] comes from a 0.61-hectare parcel planted in Red Hill. Handpicked fruit is whole-bunch pressed, tank fermented without inoculation and matured in stainless steel for seven months”.

Cappa Stone Clare Valley Shiraz 2010 $18
Mildura-based Cappa Stone Wine brings in fruit from a number of other wine growing regions, including the Clare Valley, source of this shiraz. Winemaker Donna Stephens, formerly of Clare Valley’s Kirrihill Wines, recently took over at Cappa Stone, though I suspect this wine predates her arrival. For a fair price, it offers a big mouthful of flavour – combining ripe, sweet shiraz, with aggressive, palate-gripping tannins, a little burst of oak and a warm-to-hot alcoholic aftertaste. I’d call it a modern rough red, where bright fruit intersects with angular tannins.

Wine review — Helm, Heartland, Scorpo Estate, d’Arenberg and Dowie Doole

24 July 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Helm Premium Riesling 2013 $48
Lustenburger family vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Mid way through the 2011–12 growing season, Ken Helm’s friend, neighbour and grape supplier, Al Lustenberger, died in a tragic accident on his property. Lustenberger’s family, however, assumed management of the vineyard, sole source of Helm Premium Riesling, and supplied fruit to Helm for the 2012 vintage. Again in 2013 the family produced the goods, although Helm now has a lease over the vineyard, his most treasured grape source. I tasted the wine shortly after bottling – perhaps the worst time for a delicate, aromatic riesling. But it looks good already – pale but brilliant, highly aromatic and intensely dry and acidic on the palate. Behind the acid, though, lies the tightly wound-up lemony varietal flavour, ready to unfurl in the years ahead – just as previous vintages have done consistently.

Helm Half Dry Riesling 2013 $25
Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
Whether you call it it half sweet or half dry, or even halb trocken, as the German’s do, a little sugar helps the riesling go down. In Helm’s version, 15 grams of natural grape sugar per litre fattens out the middle palate, accentuates the citrus-like varietal flavour and offsets the acidity that would dominate a dry riesling of this age. The overall impression is of an ultra-fresh, fruity, soft wine – a light (11.2 per cent alcohol), pleasing drink on its own or good company for hot or spicy food.

Heartland Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $19–$20
Langhorne Creek and Limestone Coast, South Australia
Langhorne Creek, near Lake Alexandrina, and the Limestone Coast, stretching for hundreds of kilometres south of the lake, produce large quantities of high-quality cabernet sauvignon. While many Langhorne Creek wines disappear anonymously into multi-region blends, Ben Glaetzer’s bear the region’s name. Glaetzer’s 2010 shows clear varietal character, reminiscent of cassis and black olive, with a touch of mint, often associated with Langhorne Creek. The fleshy palate, too, is typical of Langhorne Creek cabernet, though the variety often lacks this generosity elsewhere. The wine finishes with firm, slightly tough, dry tannins – but nothing a good steak won’t resolve.

Scorpo Estate Grown Single Vineyard Pinot Noir 2011 $45–$47
Scorpo Vineyard, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Even in the cool 2011 season, Scorpo produced a most seductive pinot noir. It’s underpinned by vibrant berry flavours. But the wine goes many steps beyond that into true pinot territory as the fruit comes deeply interwoven with firm but fine, savoury tannins. It appealed as much for its savour, texture and grippy, fine tannins as it did for its fruit.

d’Arenberg the Dead Arm Shiraz 2009 $61.75–$70
McLaren Vale, South Australia
No other beverage enjoys the mystique of wine. In this d’Arenberg the mystique stems from red a disease – eutypa lata – that kills off one side, or arm, of a vine. Hence the name, dead arm. But the disease doesn’t affect the fruit from those stately old vines, described by winemaker Chester Osborne as “truncated and gap-toothed”. Rather, they produce a sturdy, friendly, bear hug of a wine, with a deep, tannic, savoury undercurrent. The flavour intensity is truly remarkable. But it’s not overwhelming. It’s a sturdy, friendly bear hug of a shiraz, with a deep, tannic savoury undercurrent.

Dowie Doole Vermentino 2013 $25
Wetlands Vineyard, McLaren Vale, South Australia
Vermentino (also known as favorita and pigato) is the most important white variety of Sardinia, Italy, and is also grown in Liguria, Piemonte and in southern France. A number of Australian makers now cultivate vermentino, which seems suited to warm, dry climates. Dowie Doole’s version, from a small, trial planting (less than half a hectare), attempts to rev up the variety with wild-yeast fermentation in barrels – followed by lees stirring and further maturation in barrel. The resulting vibrant, savoury dry white drinks pleasantly enough, though I suspect it’s a quaffing variety requiring few such winemaking tricks.

Mudgee wine versus hot and spicy Thai food

24 July 2013People, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

In a brave and confident display early July, winemaker David Lowe pitted his solid, tannic Mudgee red wines, and a couple of whites, against the spice and fire of Thirst’s exciting Thai food.

The combinations got us talking about wine and food matching in general, about what goes, or not, with spicy food and, in particular, with chilli – the most widely used spice in the world.

The chilli pepper family derives its palate scorching powers from the alkaloid, capsaicin. Ironically, what attracts us to it – its burning power – was probably nature’s way of protecting plants from hungry predators – like us.

Yet we dose up on it, dowse the fire momentarily, or aggravate it, with cool liquid, then, like palate pyromaniacs, come back for more – as we did at Thirst a few weeks back.

Before the fireworks began, we tasted Louee Nullo Mountain Riesling 2012 – a searing, delicate beauty of a dry white, needing time to tame, and due for release in a few years, says Lowe. It’s from the Louee vineyard, 1100 metres above sea level on Nullo Mountain, near Rylestone – a colder site than Lowe’s Mudgee vineyards, 50 kilometres away and almost 700 metres lower down.

The riesling follows us to dinner, where it joins Louee Nullo Mountain Pinot Grigio 2012 and Thirst’s chilli-laden fish cakes. It’s a strikingly aromatic pinot grigio, suggesting drinking pleasure ahead. My neighbour, Nick Bulleid, gets to the wine before the food and says the flavour matches the aroma – delicious. But I hit the chilli first and the wine seems flavourless, albeit cold and fresh. The high-acid riesling, on the other hand, maintains some flavour through the chilli peak. Neither puts out the fire.

So here we have wine and food shouting for attention. It’s a flavour adventure, not flavour matching. The food creates its own urgency, pain and thrill, while the wine flavours pop up momentarily between waves of spice and chilli heat. The pinot grigio, for example, comes back to life between courses.

This is a familiar flavour battle and one I’ve cherished for decades, putting many beers and wines to the test. The question becomes do we want to soothe the pain, fan the flame or go for the big flavour shoot out?

How about a bit of each? Drive the devil out with Beelzebub, so to speak, by turning on the flavour kaleidoscope. An old beer-judging mate, Bill Taylor, chief brewer at Lion, once told me the capsaicin family meets its match in really hoppy, bitter beers.

For example, the original Czech pilsners, and some Australian versions of the style, have the stuffing to put the chill on chilli anytime. They won’t dowse the fire, but they’ll make it sputter and fizz as capsaicin and hops joust for palate space. It’s a particularly interesting battle, too, because capsaicin and hops both have exceptionally lingering flavours.

Less bitter beers, on the other hand, tend to temper the heat. But, like the pinot grigio, they sit in the background, subdued by chilli heat and flavour.

But these beers are cheap, and being cold and wet is all we ask of them. However, if I’m drinking wine costing $20 or more a bottle, I want to taste it, even when the chilli’s burning.

Some wines step up to the mark. Lowe’s young riesling did. And it’ll no doubt look even better over time as the fruit flavour blossoms, ultimately outweighing the acidity.

In general, fruity, soft wines, whether red or white maintain flavour through the spice and chilli attack.

Aromatic and floral white wines offer a purity of fruit flavour, refreshing acidity and, quite often, a gentle sweetness. In combination, these elements not only refresh but also broaden the flavour impressions of a wide range of spicy and even mildly hot dishes. Riesling is a favourite, especially those with modest amounts of residual sugar.

In the discussion at Thirst, partner in Winewise magazine, Lester Jesberg, mentioned Beaujolais – a soft, juicy, light-bodied, fruity red made from the gamay grape at the southern tip of France’s Burgundy region.

I’ve enjoyed the style with hot and spicy foods and agree with Jesberg. The lovely fruitiness runs side by side with chilli, without taking the edge off the heat. But no wine I know of achieves the latter.

In the last few years, I’ve tried a wide range of red wines with Indian food, covering a spectrum of spicy flavours and, at times, intense chilli heat. We’ve yet to find one that mollifies the heat. But fruity wines with soft tannins consistently hold their flavours with the food. In particular, we’ve enjoyed Australian warm climate shiraz and grenache and blends where those two varieties dominate.

At the Thirst-Lowe dinner and tasting, a long run of shirazes, from 2002 vintage to 2011 (with some gaps) as well as zinfandel and nebbiolo and found much to love. However, Mudgee reds in general carry a formidable tannin load, giving a firm, sometimes-tough finish. I don’t think these work with hot and spicy food.

To me, the most appealing with the food were the fruitier zinfandels (though the tannins took the edge off) and Lowe’s Block 8 Shiraz 2011 – a fragrant and silky, soft wine from an unusually cold vintage. Lowe called it his “stalky Murrumbateman style”.

Overall, though, the people attending the dinner didn’t seem too fussed about whether the wine and food matched or clashed. They enjoyed both, they said, and weren’t silly enough to be deflected from a good night out and exploring a great diversity of flavours.

Wine review — Mad Fish, Yalumba and Heartland

21 July 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Mad Fish Gold Turtle Margaret River Chardonnay 2012 $14.25–$15
A mad fish and a gold turtle seem unlikely companions in a wine name. But the wine, from Jeff and Amy Burch’s Howard Park Winery, Margaret River, offers extraordinarily good drinking at a bargain price. Sourced from the Wilyabrup and Karridale sub-regions, Gold Turtle Chardonnay offers bright, fresh nectarine-like varietal flavour with lively acidity and a rich texture derived from a natural fermentation in barrel followed by extended maturation on yeast lees. The screw cap on wines of this calibre enables reliable cellaring for perhaps five years from vintage.

Yalumba The Strapper Barossa Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2011 $17–$20
Winemakers generally put the best spin on their vintage stories, even in miserable, wet, cold years like 2011. The Barossa was particularly hard hit in this season. But the better wines, through careful fruit selection, show fresh, clean regional flavours, albeit in a leaner, lighter style reflecting the cold growing season. Louisa Rose’s red is an excellent example of this. We bought ours at Civic Pub where it washed down a thick and chunky meat pie quite nicely. Grenache fragrance set the tone of this medium-bodied, earthy and savoury dry red.

Heartland Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2010 $19–$20
From Langhorne Creek, near Lake Alexandrina, South Australia, winemaker Ben Glaetzer reports an “amazing” 2012 vintage, a small but excellent 2010 vintage and a disastrous 2011 season, noting, “no 2011 reds will be released from Heartland Wines as we were not able to create anything we found worthy of our label”. Glaetzer’s 2010 shiraz offers generous, mulberry-like fruit flavours – lively, sweet and juicy on the palate, and cut with soft, savoury tannins. Glaetzer says the blend contains a small amount of fruit from the Limestone Coast, a little to the south of Langhorne Creek.

A tribute to Peter Lehmann

17 July 2013People, WineChris Shanahan

Peter Lehmann’s flagship red, Stonewell shiraz, carries his profile on label; and I can never open a bottle without thinking of Lehmann, his witty quips and his profound influence on the Barossa Valley.

In the end, the company he founded belonged to the Swiss group, Hess Family Estates. But that was an outcome Lehmann engineered ten years ago, in the third and final battle he fought and won in the interests of Barossa grape growers and, indeed, the identity of his own company and the Barossa in general.

The first battle came in 1977 when pastoral company, Dalgety, owner of Saltram Winery, decided not to buy grapes for the 1978 vintage. As winemaker at Saltram, Lehmann refused to abandon the growers. And in a gutsy effort, with support from his wife Margaret, good mate Robert Hesketh and others, established Masterson Wines to buy grapes and make wines under contract at Saltram in vintages 1978 and 1979.

In 1980, when new owners, Seagram, banned contract making at Saltram, Lehmann, under considerable financial duress rushed to build new winery at Tanunda in time for the coming vintage.

Long serving Lehmann winemaker, Andrew Wigan recalls of the vintage, “The winery was still being built around us. The Italian concreters went crazy every time fresh juice was spilt onto the setting concrete. Cellar hands and winemakers alike had to jump from tank to tank because we did not have scaffolds or catwalks”.

Later, Masterson Wines became Barossa Vignerons Pty Ltd and then Peter Lehmann’s Wines Pty Ltd, after Cerebos took a controlling interest.

In 1987, Adelaide based McLeod’s acquired the majority of the company, at the same time folding Hoffmans and Basedows into it. Peter and Margaret Lehmann, via a family trust, held eight per cent of the new entity.

In 1993 Margaret and Peter Lehmann became a vocal minority when McLeod’s decided to offload their interest in the company. But McLeod’s were backed into a corner as they could sell to no one but the Lehmanns. Once again, the Lehmanns placed the family jewels (and Peter’s super money) on the line as they sought to finance a buyout. The outcome, after a short period of intense anxiety for the Lehmanns, was a listing of Peter Lehmann Wines on the Australian stock exchange in 1993 – $5.8 million oversubscribed in just three weeks.

But the listing ultimately exposed the company to a hostile takeover bid by British giant Allied Domecq in 2003. Lehmann, thoroughly aware of the enormous damage wrought to the Australian wine industry by large corporate takeovers, refused to sell his block of shares. He successfully engineered a friendly buyout by Switzerland’s Hess Family Estates – an option he believed offered greater security for the company’s Barossa identity and the grape growers behind it.

Another perhaps less appreciated achievement of Lehmann lay in saving century old winemaking tradition from extinction.

Lehmann had been winemaker at Saltram since 1959. He’d taken the reins from Bryan Dolan when Dolan moved to sister company Stonyfell, replacing Jack Kilgour who’d been making Stonyfell wines since 1932.

Dolan, in turn, had spent his first four years at Saltram working alongside Fred Ludlow before taking over in 1949. And Fred had been there since 1893, making wine for the last fifteen years of his remarkable sixty-year service.

In his time under Dolan, Lehmann continued the tradition of making sturdy, long-lived reds, introduced the flagship “Mamre Brook” red, sourced from a vineyard of that name, and introduced the use of new oak for red wine maturation in 1973.

So, in 1979 when Lehmann walked – with the stranded Barossa growers and offsider, Andrew Wigan – he effectively transplanted the Saltram winemaking culture to his new venture, Masterson Barossa Vignerons. Saltram subsequently fell into a deep hole for fifteen years.

The winemaking achievements of the old Saltram culture can’t be underestimated. In a tasting marking Saltram’s 140^th anniversary in 1999 — attended by Bryan and Nigel Dolan and Peter Lehmann – reds from the Ludlow through to Lehmann eras, spanning the years 1946 to 1979, drank remarkably well.

As Saltram lost the plot, Lehmann, even under enormous financial constraints, kept the Barossa red-tradition alive, starting with the 1980 vintage.

Then in 1987, Lehmann, with Andrew Wigan, made the first Peter Lehmann Stonewell Shiraz. Lehmann once described Stonewell to me as, “a continuation of the Mamre Brook dream – aided and abetted by Andrew Wigan”.

This marvellous wine (current release 2008 vintage, retail around $95), remains for me a memento of this exceptional man, son of a Lutheran pastor, winemaker from 1947, businessman and loyal and courageous friend and supporter of hundreds in the Barossa Valley.

Wine review — Moorilla, Chateau Semeillan Mazeau, Brookland Valley, Rob Dolan and Jim Barry

17 July 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Moorilla Muse Pinot Noir 2011 $48
Moorilla Derwent vineyard, St Matthias Tamar vineyard, Tasmania
The appointment of Conor van der Reest as winemaker in 2007 precipitated a dramatic turnaround in the quality of Moorilla’s wines, achieved largely by slashing yields from the company’s Derwent and Tamar vineyards. The two exciting pinots reviewed today demonstrate the extent of that quality turnaround. Muse pinot noir comes predominantly from Moorilla’s Derwent vineyard, containing vines Claudio Alcorso established from cuttings he collected in Burgundy in 1963. The lovely aroma reveals a spectrum of fragrant pinot characters, including fruit, stalkiness and savouriness. But it’s on the palate the wine really delivers with its juicy depth, stalk and spice seasoning, slippery texture and fine but sturdy backbone of tannin. The intense flavour and firm backbone derive partly from oak, though this is completely integrated with the fruit. Will probably cellar well for 5–10 years.

Moorilla Praxis Pinot Noir 2012 $30
Moorilla St Matthias vineyard, Tamar River, Tasmania
Moorilla Praxis offers a contrast to its sturdier, more savoury and tannic cellar mate, Muse. The highly aromatic nose suggests strawberries and raspberries, though there’s a hint of stalk and pinot savouriness, too. Sweet red-berry flavours reflect the aroma. And these bold fruit flavours remain the central feature of a wine deriving its structure from acidity as well as tannin. It offers lovely drinking now and should drink well for another three or four years.

Chateau Semeillan Mazeau 2005 $49
Listrac-Medoc, Bordeaux, France
In cooler years wines from Bordeaux’s hinterland, such as Moulis and Listrac, tend to be under-ripe and therefore lean and green on the palate. However, in warm seasons like 2005 the wines can be fully ripe and very good indeed. Chateau Semeillan falls into this category. An elegant, 50:50 blend of merlot and cabernet, it offers fully ripened berry flavours, cut through with sturdy but round tannins – of an all-pervasive style that we never see in Australian cabernet-merlot blends – and which, indeed, define the “claret” style. (Imported by discovervin.com.au).

Brookland Valley Unison Cabernet Sauvignon 2011 $17–$20
Margaret River, Western Australia
Whether to drink Brookland Valley Unison or Chateau Semeillan Mazeau at double the price seems partly a question of style and not just one of quality. The French red offers good fruit tightly bound up in tannin – thus putting texture and structure on an equal footing with that fruit. Brookland Valley, on the other hand puts varietal fruit to the fore – both in the sweet aroma and juicy vibrance of the palate. Tannin supports the fruit but without adding depth or length. It offers simply, fruity drink-now pleasure at a fair price

Rob Dolan True Colours Chardonnay 2012 $22–$24
Yarra Valley, Victoria
In a wine show this score would be equivalent to a silver medal – a rating we give to fault-free wines showing clear varietal character and above average depth and interest. The wine appeals because it offers the richness and nectarine-like flavour of chardonnay with body and barrel-derived complexities – but not oakiness or heaviness. It’s a really good example of bright, modern Australian chardonnay from veteran maker, Rob Dolan..

Jim Barry Watervale Riesling 2013$15–$19
Jim Barry Florita vineyard, Watervale, South Australia
Clare’s warm, dry 2013 season resulted in an early harvest and, for Jim Barry Wines at least, an aromatic, pure and full-flavoured riesling. Peter Barry welcomed the low disease pressure of the dry season and the resulting clean fruit. The 2013 bears Watervale’s signature lime-like varietal flavour and delicacy, albeit in a slightly more full-bodied style than 2012 and 2011. The wine is nevertheless delicate, bone dry and mouth-wateringly fresh. There’s a long pedigree to rieslings from this vineyard, sold originally under the Leo Buring and Lindeman labels. The Barry family bought the vineyard from Lindemans in 1986.