Monthly Archives: July 2015

Wine review – Stella Bella, Mitolo, Chateau Les Maurins, Angullong, Shaw and Smith

29 July 2015Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Stella Bella Serie Luminosa Chardonnay 2012
Forest Grove and Gnarawary Road vineyards, Margaret River, Western Australia
$65
Stella Bella’s flagship chardonnay momentarily upstaged a memorable lunch at Canberra’s Chairman and Yip restaurant. Even the Chairman’s signature pungent, chewy, savoury, salted squid couldn’t detract our attention form the wine’s shimmering beauty. This is modern Australia chardonnay at its most luscious, irresistible best. We could strip it down to the component flavours and textures of fruit, barrel-fermentation, malo-lactic fermentation (conversion of austere malic acid to soft lactic acid), maturation on spent yeast cells and a couple of years’ bottle age But these elements all sing together, led by Margaret River’s dazzling fresh, fleshy fruit and completed by the rich, fine texture.

Stella Bella Chardonnay 2012
Margaret River, Western Australia
$29–$32
At about half the price, Stella Bella chardonnay provides much of the drinking thrill of its $65 cellar mate, Serie Luminosa. Like the flagship wine, it’s fermented and matured in high quality French oak barrels and bottle aged for a couple of years before release. And the wine delivers Margaret River’s fleshy, refined fruit flavours, seasoned by all of those winemaking inputs. It provides great sensual pleasure, if not the attention-grabbing intensity, elegance and sheer beauty of the flagship.

Mitolo Angela Shiraz 2013
Sandra’s block, Willunga, McLaren Vale, SA
$33–$35
There’s nothing flashy about Canberra’s Civic Pub. But it’s a comfy watering hole, serving fresh, simple food and fairly priced wine to accompany it. On a cold winter’s day a rare sirloin, with crisp, steamed string beans, a couple of spuds and tangy pepper sauce, paired deliciously with Mitolo Angela Shiraz. What simple pleasure: hot, fresh food and a warming, ripe, fruity red, with the savour and soft tannins typical of McLaren Vale. Two blokes, one bottle and happy smiles.

Chateau Les Maurins 2013
Entre-deux-Mers, Bordeaux, France
$9.99
For the first time since the 2010 vintage, this Aldi import landed on the Chateau Shanahan tasting bench. From the region between Bordeaux’s Dordogne and Garonne rivers, the wine offers a ripe fruity aroma, somewhat surprisingly for this cool area. On the palate, powerful, mouth-puckering tannins swamp the fruit, giving a very grippy, dry finish. The style may not please palates used to softer, fruitier Australian reds. But it has its place, preferably with red meats as the protein softens the tannins.

Angullong Fossil Hill Sangiovese 2013
Angullong vineyard, Orange, NSW
$24
Sangiovese, the principle grape of Italy’s Chianti zone, tends to make medium bodied, savoury reds with a notable tannic grip. Fossil Hill Sangiovese, from Orange, NSW, has a light to medium hue and a savoury aroma – reminiscent of tobacco – with a touch of cherry-like fruit. The palate reflects the aroma precisely, combining savour and fresh fruit in a wine of medium body, with fine, firm tannins giving a food-friendly tweak to the finish.

Shaw and Smith Sauvignon Blanc 2015
Adelaide Hills, South Australia
$23.80–$26
Just as Cloudy Bay paved the way for other sauvignon blancs from Marlborough, New Zealand, Shaw and Smith set the pace for Australian styles. And every year, owner Michael Hill-Smith presents the new vintage, fresh from the vine, at a series of Australia-wide lunches. Perhaps there are better drinks than sauvignon on a miserably cold, wet Canberra day. But dozens of trade dutifully attended this year’s launch. Eyeing the reds to follow, we succumbed to the new sauvignon’s charms. It really is as good as the variety gets in Australia, seducing with its dazzling fresh, passionfruit-like juiciness.

Canberra brewer’s gypsy pact

29 July 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Pact Beer Co, Canberra’s ambitious new brewer. Photo Giancarlo Del Miglio

Like the Wig and Pen, Zierholz, and Bent Spoke, Canberra’s new brewer, the Pact Beer Co, arose from the vibrant, anarchic underworld of home brewing.

In 2014, Kevin Hingston, a keen home brewer, became national winner of the Australian Amateur Brewing Championships.

His appetite whet, Hingston moved into the professional ranks this year. With the backing of Canberra-raised mates Mark Grainger and Tim Osborne, Hingston brewed Pact Beer Co’s first ales at craft breweries in Sydney and Melbourne – a widespread practice known as gypsy brewing.

He offers the beers on tap at the Transit Bar, the Durham Castle, the Pot Belly, the Old Canberra Inn and A. Baker, and take-away “growlers” at Plonk.

Hingston plans to introduce bottled beer into Canberra by September, and has ambitions to build a sizeable brewery here in future. “We’d like a brewery larger than the existing Canberra operators – large enough to supply wholesale”, Hingston said.

Pact beers reviewed

Pact Beer Co Brickworks Brown Ale schooner $7
“Gypsy” brewer Kevin Hingston launched Brickworks Brown Ale at the Durham Castle, Kingston, on 16 July. The beer pours deep amber with an abundant, inviting head. Strong, floral hops aromas leads to a rich, warming palate, with flavours of caramel, malt and roasted grains under the pervasive hops, which linger in flavour and bitterness.

Pact Beer Co Tennent Pale Ale schooner $7
A big, bold beer in the American pale ale style, Tennent sets pungent, resiny hops against rich, sweet, malty flavours. Hops dominate from first sniff to the lingering aftertaste, in an harmonious and characterful interpretation of the style. On tap at Durham Castle, Transit Bar, Pot Belly and Old Canberra Inn.

Wine review – Corte Carista, Hardys and Seppelt

26 July 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Chianti Classico (Corte Carista) 2012 $9.99
Aldi’s Tuscan import takes us well away in style from Australian wines made from the same grape variety, sangiovese. It’s medium bodied, taut, bone-dry, earthy and savoury with sour-cherry-like fruit characters in the aroma. On the palate this cherry-like flavour wells up through tough, pervasive, savoury tannins. It fits the Chianti Classico specification, albeit in a pleasantly rough and rustic way. Last time we tried one of these, a withered little cork snapped in half as we coaxed it from the bottle. The cork survived the operation this time.

Hardys Tintara McLaren Vale Shiraz 2013 $18.90–$28
Hardys, now part of Accolade Wines, began as a Tintara, McLaren Vale, producer in nineteenth century. The Tintara label reflects those roots. The 2013 vintage provides an opulent, drink-now expression of the regional shiraz style. The deep, crimson-rimmed colour suggests a strong wine with youth vitality. The aroma and palate confirm this with full, ripe, vibrant fruit flavours, reminiscent of ripe, black cherries. Behind the fruit flavours we detect dark-chocolate and other savoury characters weaving through the smooth, soft tannins.

Seppelt Jaluka Chardonnay (Henty, Victoria) 2013 $23.75–$27
The Drumborg vineyard, planted by Karl Seppelt in1964, lies a little to the north of Portland on Victoria’s southwest coast. The cool, maritime climate presented huge viticultural challenges in the early days. But over the decades its managers coaxed ever better fruit from the site, culminating in elegant, charming wines like Jaluka chardonnay. The very good 2013 shows us an intense, fine-boned face of modern Australian chardonnay from a very cool climate. Delicate, grapefruit-like varietal flavours underpin a complex, barrel-fermented wine. Possibly the best value for money chardonnay made in Australia.

Wine review – powerful Barossa shiraz leads trans-continental Aussie wine line up

22 July 2015Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Torbreck The Struie Shiraz 2013
Barossa and Eden Valleys, South Australia
$45–$49
Like a black hole sucking in stars, Torbreck “The Laird” Shiraz 2010 ($700) held 30 tasters captive, powerless to reach the other nine reds on the table. And little wonder. The Laird’s deep, dark power sucked the marrow from our bones and filled our heads with awe. But further out in the Torbreck constellation, we later found the heavenly, if not divine, Struie. Powerful shiraz from the Barossa Valley, tamed by more elegant Eden Valley fruit, gives The Struie sumptuous, earthy, savoury richness, with layers of harmonious flavours and tannins.

Angullong Fossil Hill Barbera 2013
Fossil Hill vineyard, Orange, NSW
$24
Fossil Hill vineyard lies at the lower altitude limit of the Orange region, at around 600 metres. The site successfully ripens northern Italy’s barbera grape and the winemakers successfully capture its zesty, fruity character. They allow about a fifth of the harvest to ferment as whole berries – which means the fermentation begins anaerobically inside the berries, contributing the wine’s fruity freshness. The result is pale to medium coloured red, of medium body, with fresh fruit flavours to the fore, albeit with a savoury edge. Fairly high acidity combines with fine tannins to give a pleasantly tart finish to a distinctive style.

Mad Fish Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2014
Great Southern and Margaret River, Western Australia
$12.50–$18
The Burch family’s budget brand, Mad Fish, benefits from all the care lavished on the more expensive wines sold under its Howard Park, and Marchand and Burch labels. For as little as $12.50 (at time of writing) you can enjoy the pure and distinctive taste of Western Australia’s sauvignon blanc-semillon blend. There’s nothing fancy or complex about the wine. Rather, it captures vigorous herbaceous flavours of the two varieties and throws in the plump and juicy mid palate all too often missing from these blends.

Longview Red Bucket Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Macclesfield and Kuitpo, Adelaide Hills, South Australia
$14.25–$17
Brothers Peter and Mark Saturno provide consistently good drinking with their entry-level Red Bucket wines. The red blend, from two comparatively warm sites in the Adelaide Hills, offers particularly fleshy, ripe flavours in the excellent 2013 vintage. The wine has the bright berry flavours, medium body and elegant structure, expressive of a warm site in a cool region. While shiraz gives a juicy richness to the mid palate, the tell-tale leafy notes of cabernet season the wine and its tannins provide backbone.

Oakridge Local Vineyard Series Arneis 2014
Murrummong vineyard, Yarra Valley, Victoria
$26
Necessity became the mother of Oakridge Arneis when neighbouring winery Yarra Loch no longer wanted the fruit. For ever-inventive winemaker David Bicknell, that meant another white to fiddle with each vintage. The Piedmontese variety tends to be neutral. It therefore challenges winemakers to find a balance between winemaking tricks that add character, or going too far and overwhelming the wine. In the 2014, Bicknell produced a wine of striking melon and citrus aromas and a dry palate of great vitality and interest. It’s available only at oakridgewines.com.au.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2013
Wynns vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
$30.30–$45
The latest Wynns Black Label (due for release 5 August) reflects one of Australia’s longest running, most effective wine-improvement programs. Early this century Wynns winemaker, Sue Hodder, with viticulturist Allen Jenkins, began restructuring Wynns’ massive vineyard holdings and, at the same time, deconstructing (then reconstructing) winemaking processes. A deep understanding of individual vineyard plots has enabled harvesting of multiple, comparatively small grape batches progressively at proper ripeness. A new winery built to handle multiple batches gave Hodder precise control over quality and style. We now see the results in all its varietal purity, elegance and strength in this, Black Label’s sixtieth vintage.

Fat Yak sires lazy offspring

22 July 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Herd mentality

The release this month of CUB’s Lazy Yak – first offspring of Matilda Bay’s successful Fat Yak Pale Ale – reveals much about the rapidly growing craft beer market. It also supports predictions the big brewers are best placed to profit from it.

Fat Yak was itself a toned-down version of Matilda Bay Alpha Pale Ale. Brewed originally at the CUB’s Matilda Bay Garage Brewery in Dandenong, the astonishingly bitter, malt-sweet Alpha displayed the sheer power and idiosyncrasy of the American Pale Ale style.

The enormous success of Alpha’s less astonishing offspring, Matilda Bay Fat Yak, saw Fat Yak supplant Matilda Bay as the brand drinkers recognised.

And now to appeal to a growing herd of less savvy craft beer drinkers, the Yak herd expands. The new member, not yet tasted, tones down the bitterness considerably from the original while remaining an all-malt brew.

Beer reviews

Rye River Brewing Co McGargles Granny Mary’s Red Ale 330ml $4.20
Granny Mary’s warm, burnished mahogany colour comes from the roasted malt used in its making. Subtle roasted-grain flavours push through the beer’s malt and caramel-like flavours, giving a pleasant tartness to the dry, moderately bitter finish. The ale comes from Rye River Brewing of County Kildare, Ireland.

Hawthorn Brewing Co Pilsner 330ml $4.20
Hawthorn Brewing’s pilsner emulates the classic Czech style from the town of the same name. It succeeds to a large degree with its bright golden colour and fresh, full, malty palate, cut through with lingering hops bitterness. It’s more fun to drink than the average mass-made pilsner, thanks largely to its notable hops bitterness.

Wine review– Pizzini, Wirra Wirra and Ferngrove

19 July 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Pizzini King Valley Rosetta Sangiovese Rosé 2014 $17–$19
Joel Pizzini’s sangiovese rosé pours a light and bright pink colour. The inscrutable appearance, shared by most modern rosés, offers no hint about the style. It could be sweet and bland; soft, gentle and delicately fruity; or dry, savoury and grippy. The aroma yields a few clues – strawberry-like, perhaps a touch of sour cherry, and not sweet. The fresh and lively palate provides the answers: this is a light and refreshing expression of the sangiovese grape. Gentle, savoury tannins give a pleasantly tart tweak to the dry, fruity-but-restrained palate.

Wirra Wirra Original Blend McLaren Vale Grenache Shiraz 2013 $19–$25
Wirra Wirra’s new release combines grenache (70 per cent) with shiraz (30 per cent) from McLaren Vale’s McLaren Flat and Seaview sub-regions. Gentle winemaking techniques (including hand plunging of the skins and basket pressing), combined with maturation in older oak barrels, captured the unique characters of the two varieties. The lovely floral notes of grenache combine seamlessly with earthier, fuller-bodied shiraz in a vibrant, round, juicy wine with soft, caressing tannins. It’s a sensuous, jolly, happy wine made to enjoy right now.

Ferngrove Frankland River Orchid King Malbec 2012 $29–$32
Ferngrove’s seriously good malbec comes from Frankland River, about 270 kilometres southeast of Margaret River, Western Australia. While malbec remains largely a blending variety in Australia, it can stand on its own when grown in the right conditions. And clearly they are in this remote corner of the continent. Orchid King delivers the heady, plummy aroma of the variety, along with its deep colour, intense flavour and strong, tannic backbone. Indeed so good is the fruit, it easily absorbed and benefited from extended maturation in new French and Hungarian barrels. The oak influence is notable and, in this instance, symbiotic.

Wine review – Chalmers

18 July 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Chalmers Heathcote Fiano 2012 $33
The little known white variety, fiano, thrives in the heat of Italy’s Campania region, where it’s been known since around 1240. Australian winemakers took this cue to plant it in our warmer regions – and it obliged by making characterful dry whites well removed in style from our usual fare. The Chalmers family’s version, from Heathcote Victoria, delivers bold, fresh flavours, reminiscent of melon-rind and citrus fruit. Partial barrel fermentation added to the wine’s rich, smooth texture. And being Italian, it finishes, of course, with a pleasantly tart tang.

Wine review – Wynns Coonawarra Estate, Farr, Pizzini, Keller, Smith and Hooper, and Yalumba

15 July 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Black Label Shiraz 2013
Coonawarra, South Australia
$33–$44
Wynns’ top-end reds, due for release on 5 August, include this outstanding vintage of Black Label Shiraz. A relative newcomer to Wynns’ line-up, Black Label is the shiraz equivalent, in price and quality, to the legendary Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon, made continuously since 1954. The 2013 vintage displays Coonawarra’s distinctive strength with elegance – where intense fruit and strong tannins meld seamlessly in a wine of great finesse. Our bottle drank well and evolved without degradation for four days after opening, suggesting a long cellaring life.

Viognier by Farr 2013
Farr family vineyards, Geelong, Victoria
$50.35–$61
Is a wine handcrafted if it’s foot stomped, like the Farr family’s exotic, delicious viognier? The variety all too easily makes flat and flabby wines, oozing with strong apricot-like flavours. But in this instance cool growing conditions and early harvesting mean a more restrained style. The Farr wine retains a hint of varietal apricot character in its silky, rich palate, but the flavour leans more to ginger, seen in the finest examples of the variety. Barrel fermentation and maturation contributed to the wine’s plush texture.

Pizzini Pietra Rossa Sangiovese
Pizzini vineyards, King Valley, Victoria
$25–$28
Pietra Rossa, the new name for Pizzini’s original sangiovese, distinguishes it from four other reds and a rosé they now make from the variety. In the warm, dry 2013 season Pietra Rossa reveals sangiovese’s deep, savoury characters, reminiscent of black olives, soy and tobacco. These savoury elements mingle on the palate with sour-cherry-like fruit flavours and the variety’s firm, drying tannins.

Keller von der Fels Riesling Trocken 2014
Florsheim-Dalsheim, Rheinhessen, Germany
$59–$65
Riesling’s motherland shows its class with this pale, delicate, dry beauty. Germany’s riesling reputation rests largely on sweeter wines produced along the Rhine and Mosel rivers. However, dry (trocken) rieslings like Keller’s can be equally impressive. A pale and highly aromatic wine, it shimmers with vibrant fruit flavours on a palate that combines power and rich texture with supreme delicacy. One bottle won’t be enough. Contact the importer, heartandsoil.com.au, for stockists.

Smith and Hooper Pinot Grigio 2014
Wrattonbully, South Australia
$17–$19
Whether called by the French name, pinot gris, or the Italian pinot grigio, this pink-grey version of the noble pinot grape tends to make bland, non-descript wine. However, in the right climate, with attentive vineyard care and winemaking, it can rise above the ordinary, as it does in Smith and Hooper’s version. A spontaneous fermentation on grape solids, followed by six months’ maturation on spent yeast cells, gave the wine a rich texture. This texture, combined with delicate pear-like varietal flavour, gives the wine considerable appeal.

Yalumba Galway Vintage Malbec 2012
Barossa Valley, South Australia
$19
It all began with Yalumba Galway “Claret” back in 1943. And recently the Yalumba marketers extended the brand with the release of this very fruity Barossa malbec. The wine capture’s malbec’s plummy perfume and flavour on a medium bodied, moderately tannic palate. It’s all about purity of fruit flavour, with little sign of winemaker add-ons. Drink now.

2013 – a great apple year in Orange

15 July 2015Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Good vintage for Small Acres Cyder

Like winemakers along the southern NSW tablelands, James Kendall loved the 2013 vintage. However, Kendall’s enthusiasm is for cider apples, not grapes.

In 2006, with wife Gail, Kendall bought bare land at Borenore, near Orange. They established the Small Acres Cyder business and planted three hectares of English and French cider apple varieties.

Kendall, with local winemaker Chris Derrez, makes most of his cider off-site from purchased fruit. However, in good seasons, he uses his own cider varieties and cellar to make a bottle-fermented version.

He uses the traditional rack and cloth method to extract juice from the apples. This oxidative process enriches the flavour and deepens the colour of the resulting cider, which undergoes a secondary fermentation and 24-months’ maturation in bottle.

The just-released 2013 vintage replaces the sold-out 2011 vintage, winner of the champion Australian cider trophy at the 2013 Australian Cider Awards.

Beer and cider reviews

Small Acres Cyder “The Cat’s Pyjamas” 2013 750ml $33
Maker James Kendall writes, “We named the Cat’s Pyjamas after the 1920s saying meaning the best that you can do. It’s certainly not your average cider”. Bottle fermented and aged for two years, it pours deep lemon-gold with persistent small bubbles. It’s ultra fresh and mature at the same time, with delicious, piquant pure apple flavour.

Wychwood Brewery Pile Driver Classic English Ale 500ml $6
Wychwood’s loveable, deep-amber-coloured ale remains a winter favourite, with its warm, malty, molasses-like aroma. The rich, smooth palate reflects the aroma. And spicy, herbal hops cut through the malt adding flavour and a long, persistent bitter finish. The malt–hops combination delivers flavour galore despite a modest 4.3 per cent alcohol content.

Wine review – Yering Station, Campbells of Rutherglen, and Smith and Hooper

12 July 2015Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Yering Station Yarra Valley Village Chardonnay 2012 $25
Sauvignon blanc remains Australia’s most consumed white wine. But Australian vignerons make only about a quarter as much sauvignon as they do chardonnay, which remains by far our number one homegrown white variety. Australian wineries take in around 400 thousand tonnes a year of chardonnay grapes, equivalent to about 30 million dozen bottles of wine. Much of this is exported in bulk or bottle. However, we drink most of the good stuff, including gems like the Rathbone family’s Yering Station Village 2012. At three years’ age it portrays the fresh, delicious, deeply layered flavour of elegant, cool-grown oak-fermented and -matured chardonnay.

Campbells of Rutherglen Bobbie Burns Shiraz 2013 $19.95–$22
Australian shiraz covers a broad style spectrum, determined largely by climate – from limpid, supremely elegant, cool-grown versions, structured like pinot noir, to black and burly, gum-crunching monsters, grown in hot conditions. Bobbie Burns comes from one of those regions, Rutherglen. But the Campbell family tames the monster, without losing the distinctive port-like ripeness, full body and abundant tannins. Fine -tuning of the style over the years means a Bobbie Burns of bright fruit aromas and flavours, albeit very ripe, mingled with rustic but not rough tannins. The wine has a proven ability to evolve over many years in the cellar – a rare distinction in reds at this price.

Smith and Hooper Wrattonbully Merlot 2013 $16.15–$21
The Wrattonbully region lies to the north and east of Coonawarra on South Australia’s Limestone Coast. Planting in the region exploded from the early to mid nineties during an export-led red-wine boom. Companies were attracted by Wrattonbully’s lower land prices and climatic similarity to well-established Coonawarra. Twenty years on, the region contributes to many of Australia’s popular multi-region wines and top-shelf reds, while slowly building its own identity. Smith and Hooper (part of the Hill-Smith and Yalumba empire) capture true merlot character in this wine: ripe, plummy and herbal flavours, medium body, elegant structure and grippy but fine tannins.