Category Archives: Uncategorized

Marchand and Burch Chardonnay 2009 $70 Porongurup, Great Southern, Western Australia This glorious chardonnay results from collaboration between Howard Park owner, Jeff Burch, and Canadian-born Burgundy winemaker, Pascal Marchand. It’s from a mature, south-facing (and therefore cool) vineyard at Porongurup, in Western Australia’s Great Southern region. It’s not an area noted for chardonnay, but this one’s so powerful, bright, delicate fresh and balanced, it simply blows away all preconceptions. Its delicacy and purity come from hand-sorting fruit, gentle, whole-bunch pressing and a short period of settling before being racked to oak barrels for a spontaneous primary fermentation.

Jeanneret Watervale Riesling 2010 $25 Watervale, Clare Valley, South Australia This is the finer and more delicate of two 2010 Clare rieslings just released by Ben Jeanneret. The rich and juicy Big Fine Girl ($19), blended from across the valley, offers delicious value. But the Watervale wine, from Barry Marssons’ vineyard on Watervale’s western slopes, captures the racy acidity, brisk, lime-like flavour and delicate, long dry finish of this distinguished Clare sub region. It delivers big drinking satisfaction at a modest price.

Chandon Vintage Brut 2007 $39.59 Various cool regions in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia and Western Australia Chandon’s 22nd vintage bubbly, blended from over 40 base wines, continues the soft, subtle, creamy style established with the first in 1986. The blend of 54 per cent chardonnay and 46 per cent pinot noir, aged on yeast lees in bottle for about 30 months, combines the delicacy of chardonnay, the body and structure of pinot and the texture of prolonged ageing. It’s a smart wine and miles ahead of where we were with bubblies twenty years ago. But, alas, it doesn’t yet have the jaw-dropping WOW factor of the best Champagnes.

Vasse Felix Cabernet Merlot 2008 $25 Margaret River, Western Australia Vasse Felix – founded in 1967 by Dr Tom Cullity and now owned by the Holmes a Court family – remains one of Margaret River’s most exciting producers, across its whole range. But on a recent visit, three cabernet based blends, made by Virginia Wilcock, really won our taste buds. The $25 cabernet merlot blends introduces the refined, elegant style – combining bright berry flavours with a tease of oak, gentle mid palate and edgy cabernet finish. Step up to the $39 cabernet 2008 (with its touch of malbec for more power and authority; and complete the picture with the profound Heytesbury cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot, malbec ($80).

Moppity Vineyards Estate Shiraz 2009 $24.99 Hilltops, New South Wales It’s easy to love shiraz from the neighbouring Hilltops region (Young). A tad warmer than Canberra, the area produces slightly fleshier, though still medium bodied styles – featuring pure, berry and spice varietal flavours, generous mid palate and soft tannins. The wines tend to reveal their charm up front as youngsters, like this one from Jason and Alicia Brown’s Moppity vineyard. Brown says it’s sourced from the estate’s original vines, planted in 1973 – the vine age no doubt contributing to the wine’s depth and complexity. It’s simply scrumptious.

Mount Pleasant Old Paddock and Old Hill Shiraz 2007 $40 Mount Pleasant, Hunter Valley, New South Wales In 1921, legendary winemaker Maurice O’Shea planted shiraz on the Old Paddock Vineyard, not far from the vines planted 39 years earlier on the Old Hill Vineyard. The venerable old shiraz vines from the two vineyards produced this wonderful, idiosyncratic red. The colour’s limpid and crimson rimmed; the aroma combines ripe, dark berries with the Hunter’s distinctive earthiness and savouriness – characters reflected on the generous, finely structured, tannic but soft palate. A gold medallist in the 2009 Hunter Valley wine show, this is one to cellar for many years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Alkoomi Frankland River Riesling 2009 $18 Frankland River, Great Southern, Western Australia In three days based in Denmark, Western Australia, we covered all too little of the vast Great Southern region and none of Frankland River, one its five sub-regions. The Denmark Liquor store, however, helped fill the gaps with its wide range of local wines, including this lovely dry riesling from Sandy and Rob Hallett’s Alkoomi. It delivers crystal-clear citrus varietal aroma and flavour and fine, delicate, finish – the perfect after work (or travel) refresher.

Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2007 $82.50–$100 Margaret River, Western Australia If $90–$100 retail, or even $82.50 a bottle cellar door seems out there for chardonnay, even a world-class drop like Leeuwin, how about $20 for a generous glass at Leeuwin’s restaurant? It’s worth it for a wine of this calibre – a luxurious drop, big on nectarine-like varietal flavour and backed by the complexity of high quality oak, and all the textural and flavour nuances it brings. Should’ve bought the bottle we decide after four glasses! (Erroneously rated four-stars in my Canberra Times review. This was a production error, the actual rating is five-stars).

Voyager Estate Girt by Sea Cabernet Merlot 2008 $24 Margaret River, Western Australia Voyager Estate’s ‘Girt by Sea’ is to Margaret River what Majella’s ‘The Musician’ is to Coonawarra – a richly flavoured, finely structured, medium-bodied red built to drink now but without losing regional identity. ‘Girt by Sea’ reveals Margaret River’s greatest winemaking strength – blending cabernet sauvignon and merlot to produce a harmonious red, based on ripe berry aromas and flavours and backed by fine, savoury tannins – a delicious luncheon red. It’s sourced from Voyager’s ‘north block’ vineyard and the vines are up to 15 years old.

Glenpara Grenache Shiraz Mataro 2006 $25 Barossa and Clare Valleys, South Australia In 2007 Foster’s sold its historic 185-hectare Seppeltsfield property to a group of investors led by Clare Valley based Kilikanoon Wines. Seppeltsfield now offers table wines under its Glenpara label – in this instance one of those rarest of all beasts, a red with bottle age. The blend of grenache, shiraz and mataro (aka mourvedre) provides juicy, earthy, spicy, soft and satisfying current drinking. The bottle age moves it out of the primary fruit spectrum square into satisfying real-red territory.

Rochford Pinot Gris 2009 $28–$33 Macedon, Victoria The hot, dry 2009 vintage kept pinot gris yields in Rochford’s Macedon vineyard to less than 2.5 tonnes per hectare. This partly explains the richness of fruit flavour that, in combination with great textural richness, gives an impression of sweetness. Yet the wine carries a barely-detectable five grams a litre of residual sugar. This is true, cool-grown pinot gris – with a light rinse of bronze-pink colour, clear varietal flavour, silky, slightly oily texture and very fresh, lively acidity.

TarraWarra Estate Pinot Noir 2009 $22 Yarra Valley, Victoria and Tumbarumba, New South Wales Clare Halloran makes very fine, graceful Yarra Valley pinot noir. But faced with a shortage of good grapes in the severe heat and savage bush fires of 2009 she looked beyond TarraWarra for suitable fruit. The resulting one-off blend combines Yarra pinot (55 per cent) with material from a single vineyard in Tumbarumba (45 per cent). It’s in Clare’s pale-coloured but punchy style – delicately perfumed, with deep berry, savoury, gamey varietal flavours and fine but grippy structural tannins. It’s a joy to drink now and should hold for three or four years.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Cape Grace Margaret River

Chenin Blanc 2010 $20 Shiraz 2007 $34 Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $48

We recently visited Cape Grace Wines, a 6.5-hectare estate established by Robert and Karen Karri-Davies at Wilyabrup, Margaret River, in 1996. Robert looks after the vineyard, Karen the marketing and contract winemaker Mark Messenger makes the wines on site. Their chenin blanc 2010 offers an attractive, chalk-dry alternative to mainstream varieties at a modest price. The 2007 Shiraz reveals yet another fine-boned face of the variety with its spiciness and fine tannins (the soon to be released, plush and supple 2008 shades it, though). And the graceful cabernet combines olive and blackcurrant varietal flavours with cedary oak. Available at www.capegracewines.com.au

Langmeil Eden Valley Dry Riesling 2009 $19.50 Langmeil’s Paul Lindner sources the fruit for this beautiful wine from old, dry-grown vines high up in the Eden Valley, on the Barossa’s eastern flank. At a modest 11.5 per cent alcohol, with residual sugar of around seven grams per litre, it offers soft, fresh easy drinking. It’s the sort of wine that disappears quickly. But with every sip it grows in interest, revealing the pristine, delicate-but-intense flavours of this great variety. While the 2009 vintage is all but sold out the soon-to-be-released 2010 promises to be at least as good.

Zema Estate Coonawarra

Cluny Cabernet Merlot 2006 Shiraz 2007 $23–$25

Cluny – a blend of 60 per cent cabernet sauvignon, 25 per cent merlot, nine per cent cabernet franc and six per cent merlot – offers the bright, fresh aromas and flavours of ripe berries, in the unique Coonawarra mould. The palate’s medium bodied, elegantly structured and with four years’ bottle age, it’s ready to enjoy now and over the next four or five years. The shiraz, too, is medium bodied and built on bright berry flavours – but with varietal pepper and spice accent. These are beautifully made wines, allowing Coonawarra’s elegance and berry flavours to star.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

From the comfort of Google maps, Western Australia’s southwest looks a doddle. A nice little green chunk in Australia’s bottom western corner, criss-crossed by decent roads, with wineries sprinkled, albeit sparsely, across almost the entire landscape.

Close up, though, it’s a large swathe of country – three hours drive from Perth to Margaret River, via Capel; more than an hour and half from Margaret River southeast to Pemberton; another half hour up to Manjimup; and from there two and a half hours southeast to Denmark on the coast.

And Denmark, a pretty seaside town, makes a beautiful base for exploring the vast Great Southern wine region. But visiting even a handful of its 60-odd wineries, widely dispersed across hundreds of kilometres, eats up large slabs of time. And then there’s the five-hour drive back to Perth airport when the tastings end.

Even for the traveller hell bent on wine tasting, the landscape throws up its own natural distractions – from the awe of so much bush, dotted here and there with farms and vines; to the towering Karri and Red Tingle forests, to the endless seascapes. This is the wild west – a unique, sparsely populated setting for so many fine wines and a growing local-food culture.

Margaret River wine region sprawls about 100 kilometres from north to south (almost two hours drive end-to-end), from Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin. It’s bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north, west and south, with a man-made eastern boundary stretching about 27 kilometres into the hinterland, parallel to the sea. The boundaries enclose around 270 thousand hectares, of which only about 5,360 hectares – perhaps two per cent of the land surface – were covered in vines by 2008.

Margaret River township sits roughly in the middle of the official wine region. But its reputation rests largely on the long-established strip of vineyards immediately to the north around Wilyabrup and Cowaramup (for example, Vasse Felix, Cullens and Moss Wood) and a few more, notably Leeuwin and Voyager Estates and Cape Mentelle, just to the south of town.

In 1967, Dr Tom Cullity planted Margaret River’s first vines, at Vasse Felix (now owned by the Holmes a Court family). In 1999 the area produced 13 thousand tonnes of wine grapes (equivalent to roughly 900 thousand dozen bottles), and output almost tripled to 36,600 tonnes (around 2.5 million dozen) by 2008.

The production peak coincided with the global financial crisis. At the same time Australian wine exports tanked and New Zealand’s sauvignon blanc surplus flooded the eastern states – sparking a price war that continues to affect Western Australian semillon sauvignon blanc blends.

Some producers left unwanted fruit on the vines. However, Nick Power, CEO of the Margaret River Wine Industry Association, says that only a few owners removed vineyards during the glut and the broad response to oversupply has been “to re-work vines and or graft over to more suitable varieties for the vineyard. For example cabernet sauvignon and shiraz south of Margaret River [town] is being grafted to sauvignon blanc or semillon”.

Proving the benefit of regional specialisation, though, Power reports, “some wineries are planting – as cabernet sauvignon is in heavy demand and forecast to be so for a few years to come”. In the wider market, cabernet continues to run a distant second to shiraz.

Certainly as we tasted around, cabernet blends proved to be the predictable highlights, if not the only bright spots on the scene. But with 140 wineries and six breweries now operating in Margaret River, a vignette is the best any casual visitor can hope.

Arriving too late in the day for cellar door visits, our tasting began at Must wine bar, in the main street. Offering dozens of Western Australian wines by the glass or half glass, it allowed us to sip a few old friends and discover, on the sommelier’s recommendation, a couple of nice new drops, including Bellarmine Pemberton Riesling 2010 and Thompson Estate Margaret River Andrea Reserve Cabernet Merlot 2005.

Must’s food focus, too, is on local produce, beautifully prepared – including succulent asparagus and delicious pork cutlets and chorizo.

The food theme continues among the wineries, too, with any number of eateries attached to cellar door. The offers range from the simple, largely outdoor, casual setting at McHenry Hohnen, to the luxury of big-money estates like Voyager, Leeuwin and Saracen.

The McHenry Hohnen Farm Shop serves as cellar door, restaurant and outlet for pork and lamb farmed by David Hohnen – founder of Cape Mentelle, Margaret River, and Cloudy Bay, Margaret River. Hohnen’s wife, Sandy, runs the shop and his daughter Freya and partner Ryan make the wines.

When Hohnen sold Cape Mentelle to Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton, he had the good sense to keep the vineyards he’d planted in the region from around 1970. These now provide fruit for the graceful McHenry Hohnen wines.

We tasted and loved the wines, but raided the meat fridge, packed with tasty bits and pieces of fresh Arkady Farm, grass-fed, Wiltshire lamb and Jarradine Farm free-range pigs (a composite herd of Tamworth, Berkshire and Duroc breeds).

It’s obligatory to lunch in the grandeur of Leeuwin Estate, sipping the opulent and legendary chardonnay (a match for the rich XO butter sauce that, alas, outweighs a delicate, fresh marron) and watching Kookaburras feed their young on fat worms from the vast green lawn.

And what an utter contrast it is motoring up the road to Rob and Karen Karri-Davies tiny (6.5 hectares of vines) Cape Grace Wines, in the Willyabrup Valley. Nothing posh here – just a humble winery and cellar door set among the bush and wildflowers. Rob Karri-Davies attends the counter serving the very good, estate-grown wines – notably a 2007 cabernet sauvignon and yet-t-be-released 2008 shiraz – made by Mark Messenger.

We see here that a chalk-dry chenin blanc offers an interesting alternative to mainstream varieties.

And at Vasse Felix we glimpse in three glasses the spectrum of Margaret River’s ubiquitous semillon-sauvignon-blanc-blend styles: The crisp, fruity, straightforward $20 Classic Dry White 2010; the similar but weightier, more complex, partially barrel-fermented Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2010; and the delicate, texturally rich, delicious Semillon 2009 – about one third of it barrel fermented.

We taste, too, the highly-regarded Heytesbury Chardonnay 2008 and note how it’s going down the funky, “struck-match” style loved by some show judges (more on this in a later article). We also enjoy a taut, pure, dry, savoury Tempranillo 2009, one of the few non-estate-grown wines in the line up.

But the highlights are the big-value 2008 Cabernet Merlot, convincing 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon (with nine per cent malbec) and the stunning 2007 Heytesbury, a cabernet sauvignon, petit verdot, malbec blend. This style is Margaret River’s greatest wine achievement, and it’s true signature.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

McWilliams recently released the 2006 vintage of a distinguished, if little known red wine – Brands Laira Stentiford’s Old Vine Coonawarra Shiraz. The wine’s story stretches back more than a century, involves some of Coonawarra’s oldest vines and provides unique drinking at $75 a bottle – a modest price for a scarce wine of such individuality.

It comes from a surviving 1.65-hectare patch of vines tended by retired sea captain Stentiford during Coonawarra’s first decade as a wine-producing region.

In an interview some years back Diana Clayfield, Stentiford’s great grand daughter, said the captain’s records show that he rented the land for a time before purchasing it in 1896, naming it “Laira” after his square-rigged ship.

The records, however, say nothing about why a retired seaman from England chose to settle in out-of-the-way Coonawarra. Diana said she still wondered why he did such a thing.

We know that he extended the vineyard to 28-hectares, but not when the original vines went in. However, winemaker Peter Weinberg says the vineyard’s first recorded sale of grapes to John Riddoch was in 1896 – suggesting a likely planting date of 1893.

Most of the vines are long gone. But the 1.65-hectare remnant of Stentiford’s vines survived all the difficult years to be cherished now by the present owners, McWilliams, and a small but appreciative group of wine drinkers.

Across the years the vines almost certainly contributed to some of Coonawarra’s legendary reds. And almost certainly, from the 1890s and for the first two thirds of the twentieth century, grapes from the vines were simply sold to other winemakers under the successive ownership of Stentiford, Tom Ahrens and Eric Brand.

I’m not sure of the exact date, but Eric, a baker, bought the vineyard from Ahrens, along with other orchard and vineyard land from Bill Redman, after marrying Nancy Redman and moving to Coonawarra in about 1950.

According to James Halliday, only a little over two of the 24 hectares originally purchased by Brand was under vine, the remainder being orchard and, until 1966, Eric remained a grape grower, not a winemaker.

In another interview some years back Eric’s son, Jim, recalled that in the family’s first vintage, 1966, about half of the shiraz came from the old Stentiford plantings. Of this wine, James Halliday wrote in 1985, “Anyone who has the 1966 or 1968 wines in the cellar will readily understand just why this variety was able to carry the reputation of Coonawarra for more than fifty years”.

Grapes from the old vines continued to be joined with those from new plantings on the “Laira” vineyard until 1981, when the Brands decided to make and bottle wine from the Stentiford vines separately.

The Brands repeated the practice in 1982, 1984, 1986 and 1990, the year McWilliams took a half stake in the business. Under the new co-ownership, “Original Vines Shiraz”, as it was called, appeared again in 1991. And after McWilliams full take over in 1994, the wine was made in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000. And since then, says current winemaker Peter Weinberg, “in particularly exceptional vintages”.

And just where is this ancient vineyard? Look at a map of Coonawarra. You’ll see Brand’s Laira Vineyard sitting in the middle of a particularly distinguished sector: adjacent and to the north its neighbours are Redmans and Lindemans St George Vineyards; to the west is a Treasury Wine Estate’s vineyard, source of material for the sublime Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet; and to south the Zema Estate and Lindemans Limestone Ridge Vineyards.

These are some of the earliest-planted sites in Coonawarra. And, as long time Coonawarra wine maker, Greg Clayfield (brother in law of Diana) quipped, “they didn’t plant the worst land first.” To this, Bruce Redman added, “It [the Stentiford vineyard] is on some of the best terra rossa soil in Coonawarra”.

The vines were originally planted in rows seven feet apart and independently staked. Prior to the Brand family’s arrival, every second row had been removed — increasing the row spacing to fourteen feet – and the vines had been trained to a single-wire trellis.

Later, about half the vines were converted to a double trellis to open the leaf canopy. This resulted in slightly higher yields of better quality fruit. Even so, the average yield is low and Peter Weinberg says total production reaches no more than 500 dozen in a good year.

The vines are hand-pruned, hand harvested and the fruit processed in five tonne fermenters before maturation in new French oak barrels of varying sizes for about 22 months.

The resulting wine is a finely crafted expression of a distinguished Coonawarra vineyard, featuring rich but elegant Coonawarra berry flavours with a special sweet lift in the aroma and an exquisite delicacy and tenderness on the palate.

While some of the early vintages tended to mask the superb fruit with a too much extract or oak, it could always be glimpsed. But over the last decade the winemakers finessed the style. The process now extracts less colour and tannin, the wine spends less time in oak, and the oak is finer and beautifully in tune with the delicate fruit. The just-released 2006 is simply stunning – and it’s barely begun its long journey. The sweet fruit is there, peeking through the fine tannins and elegant, taut structure.

It’s one of those rare wines that stop you in your tracks – especially when you know the story, good husbandry and luck behind the venerable old vines that produced it. Its retail price of $75 is just $10 a bottle above the asking price ten years ago – indicating limited appreciation of how good it is.

But its gold medal at last year’s National Wine Show of Australia and little bit more song and dance from McWilliams surrounding this year’s release may change that.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Last week at Warnervale on the NSW central coast, Dermot O’Donnell and his crew commenced brewing at Bluetongue’s new $120 million facility. Tomorrow they’ll officially launch the first beer off the production line, Bluetongue Premium Lager, in a ceremony at the brewery.

Originally a Hunter-based boutique operation, Bluetongue now has the capacity to brew 50 million litres a year, expanding to 100 million litres a year over time. By my estimate that’s equivalent to eight and a half 330ml bottles for every person aged 15 years or over, heading towards 17 bottles

While current capacity represents perhaps one fortieth of Australian per capita beer consumption, the new facility gives the owners, Pacific Beverages (a joint venture between Coca Cola Amatil and SAB Miller), the platform to increase their estimated 10 per cent share of the fast-growing premium beer market and boost profits by brewing SAB Miller’s international brands, including Peroni and Grolsch, locally.

The new facility, combined with Coca Cola Amatil’s distribution, puts Pacific Beverages in a unique position to exploit fast-changing beer tastes. James Tait, corporate affairs director at rival Lion Nathan, recently said that the average Australian drinker now enjoys about seven beer brands on a regular basis – compared to three brands ten years ago.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Along the Great Divide in New South Wales, wine growing regions are striving to establish their identities in the minds of consumers. Mudgee, Orange and Cowra seem to be struggling in that regard. But Canberra has a foot in, thanks to its shiraz and riesling; high, cool Tumbarumba’s reputation for sparkling wine and chardonnay continues to grow, especially among producers; and Hilltops (Young) can’t seem to help making top-notch shiraz, very good cabernet and a small, impressive range of reds made from Italian varieties.

Regions define themselves by the wines they make. On that basis Hilltops rates among Australia’s best red-wine growing areas. The sheer juicy pleasure of Eden Road’s Jimmy Watson Trophy winning Hilltops Shiraz 2008 ($16.50) gave a glimpse of what to expect.

A virtually unoaked wine, one delightful mouthful opens the window on Hilltops shiraz – displaying the charm of the fruit, little altered from how it was in the vineyard. Quality moves up a notch, though, when winemakers select the very best fruit and use the transformative magic of oak maturation.

This can be seen in the graceful shiraz made by Celine Rousseau at Ted Ambler’s Chalkers Crossing and in the beautiful wines from Grove Estate and Moppity Vineyards.

Grove Estate Cellar Block Shiraz Viognier 2008 ($38) shows the amazing fruity, silky depth of the regional style. It’s unique – and irresistible. Made by Tim Kirk at Clonakilla, it’s not dissimilar in style to his own highly successful Hilltops shiraz, sourced in part from Grove Estate.

Grove’s Brian Mullany attributes fruit quality to small yields, dry, warm days and cool nights during ripening in February and March. He writes, “Our cropping levels have been very low for the past five to ten years. Our vines have been producing around four tonnes per hectare with yields as low as two tonnes per hectare some years”, comparing this to the 15–20 tonnes per hectare of a Riverland vineyard.

The concentration of fruit flavour shows through as well in Grove’s other red varieties – cabernet sauvignon, sangiovese, barbera and nebbiolo. These are all made by Richard Parker at Long Rail Gully, Murrumbateman.

Grove’s current release The Partners Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 ($25) has clear varietal aromas and flavours with fleshy, generous mid-palate fruit offsetting firm, drying tannins. It’s an excellent wine but doesn’t push the excitement button to the extent the shiraz viognier does.

Dry, savoury and great value, The Italian 2008 ($20, reviewed last week) combines the Italian varieties sangiovese and barbera. A promising wine; we’ll stand back and see where this goes in future.

But the excitement buzzer rings again as we taste three reds made from Piemonte’s noble nebbiolo. This is the grape of Italy’s aristocratic Barolo and Barbaresco. Even the Italians have trouble enough with this variety, as all too often the wines smell wonderful but collapse on the palate, overwhelmed by mouth-dessicating tannins. The best, though, are magnificent – highly fragrant and elegant with tight tannins cocooning delicious fruit flavours.

Grove’s nebbiolos fall into latter category. The Reserve 2006 ($30), a Winewise trophy winner, shows some maturity now – a seamless, taut, savoury style with a lovely core of sweet fruit.  Sommita 2007 ($45), a trophy winner at the Sydney International Wine Competition, is fuller and more concentrated, with the firm tannins of the 2007 vintage. And Sommita 2008 ($45) is simply glorious, showing the ripe, buoyant fruit qualities of the 2008 vintage. Making elegant, deeply flavoured nebbiolo of this calibre is a major achievement.

Jason Brown and his parents John and Robin (owners of Candamber liquor stores) bought the a large Hilltops vineyard from receivers in 2004 and set about restoring the neglected vines. They later subdivided the property and Jason and wife Alecia now operate their portion of it, the 68-hectare Moppity Vineyard. Jason Brown says he was attracted to Moppity by the site and the age and clones of vines in the vineyard. Between 2006 and 2009 the Browns increased production under the Moppity label from 1,000 cases to 15,000 cases.

They offer two ranges of wines, all produced from their vineyard – Lock and Key, a fighting brand, at under $15 a bottle, and the premium Moppity Vineyards ($20) Moppity Vineyards Reserve ($45) labels.

The first vintage of the reserve shiraz, 2006, won the top gold medal in its class in London International Wine and Spirit Competition; and the currently available 2007 has a gold medal and trophy – it’s a sensational wine.

Moppity Park’s two cabernets – Lock and Key Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 ($15) and Moppity Vineyards Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 ($20) are rich but elegant – Lock and Key, on the lighter, leafy side but still with delicious berry fruit flavours and firm tannins offers tremendous value; Moppity is riper, with more body and depth. I’ve not yet tasted the 2007 Reserve, containing a splash of sangiovese.

The three shirazes – Lock and Key Hilltops Shiraz 2008 ($15), Moppity Vineyards Hilltops Shiraz 2008 ($20), Moppity Vineyards Hilltops Reserve Shiraz 2007 ($50) pretty well seal the argument for Hilltops shiraz. The medium bodied Lock and Key is as good a red as you’ll ever find for the money; Moppity Vineyards ramps up the fruit concentration, but is still refined and elegant; and the Reserve shows the greater power, savouriness and firm tannins of the 2007 vintage – a brilliant shiraz.

This is only a snapshot of a region making its mark in a crowded market. Shiraz may be the signature variety. But Hilltops cabernets are good, if not as exciting as shiraz, and there’s the emerging world of Italian red varieties – including Grove’s outstanding nebbiolos and Brian Freeman’s delicious rondinella-corvina blends mentioned last week.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2008 $25–$30 Penfolds St Henri Shiraz 2006 $80–$90 Bin 28 and St Henri are contrasting, cellarable examples of warm climate shiraz. Bin 28 is the fuller, rounder and softer of the two. It’s robust and comes with the Penfolds signature – ripe, meaty fruit flavours intermingled with robust but soft tannins, with proven cellaring potential. St Henri, a blend of shiraz with 11% cabernet is beautifully fragrant and medium bodied – deeply and deliciously fruity. But taut, assertive tannins woven through the fruit suggests a long, long life ahead. Typically for St Henri, this could mean peak drinking from about 15 years’ age. For exampel, a still-vibrant 1983 tasted recently had years, perhaps decades, of life in it.

Shelmerdine Heathcote Shiraz 2007 $29–$32 Shelmerdine Merindoc Vineyard Heathcote Shiraz 2007 $59–$65 These are exciting reds from two vineyards owned by Stephen Shelmerdine. The first is a blend from the Merindoc and Willoughby Bridge vineyards at the southern and northern ends of the district respectively.  It contains a tiny drop of viognier, co-fermented with the shiraz, and it’s in the taut, savoury style with quite firm, fine tannins. It really captures the unique deep, dark-fruit, savoury Heathcote style without going over the top on alcohol. Also modestly alcoholic and savoury is the stunning, smooth textured, fine-boned Merindoc, sourced entirely from this cool southern vineyard. It’s extraordinary – made by Sergio Carlei.

Chapel Hill The Parson’s Nose McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009 $14–$16 Katnook Founder’s Block Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $18–$20 In the great discount mill these true regional varietals might fall even further in price. Chapel Hill Parson’s Nose, made by Michael Fragos, captures the ripe, vibrant, plummy richness of McLaren Vale shiraz – and even offers a little savoury bite in the finish. It’s a straightforward wine, made for current drinking, with the accent on fresh varietal flavours. A couple of hundred kilometres further south in Coonawarra, Wayne Stehbens, captured cabernet’s cassis-like varietal flavour and firm finish in Founder’s Block. Like the Chapel Hill wine, the focus is on bright fruit flavours for current drinking.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

In an international context the latest Penfolds red releases, led by Grange, look very attractive. Grange 2005’s $550 price tag, or St Henri 2006’s $90, seem modest in comparison to Bordeaux heavyweight Chateau Latour 2005, a cabernet blend, at $US1,250 a bottle in New York; or next to it on the shelf Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Le Montrachet 2005, a chardonnay, fetching $US4,400.

For make no mistake about the quality or provenance of this latest release of Penfolds top reds. They’re in a class of their own – highly polished, sophisticated and strongly individual wines built for long cellaring. They’re exciting to drink now and probably for decades.

For our tasting, we opened the wines a couple of hours before pouring, then tasted up and down the line up for a couple of hours. Exposure to air released more aromas and flavours over time; and what started as a tight bunch of big young reds fairly quickly emerged as eight distinct wines.

We retasted the wines several times over the next two days and noted observations from other tasters, experience and inexperienced, ranging in age from mid-twenties to early sixties.

Reactions to the shirazes were surprisingly consistent given the range of ages and experience. Grange and RWT emerged as clear favourites, followed by St Henri (one taster ranked it at the top) and nobody knew quite how to place Magill Estate, but liked it nevertheless.

Overall, the cabernets were less liked, but the experienced tasters enjoyed the depth and elegance of Bin 407 and the sheer power of Bin 707. And to my palate anyway, Bin 389, a cabernet shiraz blend, appealed more and more as the days ticked by.

SHIRAZ AND SHIRAZ DOMINANT WINES

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2007 $25–$30

Grape variety: shiraz

Region: South Australia, including Langhorne Creek, Upper Adelaide, Barossa, McLaren Vale and Limestone Coast.

Maturation: 12 months in seasoned American oak hogsheads (300 litre) and a portion in large old oak vats

We threw Bin 28, Bin 389 and Bin 407 into the tasting as sighters for the blue chip range. Both held up well. There’s no new oak in Bin 28 these days and that’s not a bad thing. However, it’s still in the big, ripe, warm-climate shiraz mould with the Penfolds thumbprint – robust tannins woven through the fruit, giving a meaty complexity. Upstaged in this line up, but it’s a solid and thoroughly enjoyable red.

Penfolds St Henri Shiraz 2006 $80–$90

Grape varieties: 89% shiraz; 11% cabernet sauvignon

Region: Barossa, McLaren Vale and Limestone Coast

Maturation: 15 months in 1,460-litre oak vats, more than 50-years old

The aroma’s fragrant, spicy and immediately recognisable as shiraz, but taking on a winey complexity. There’s a sweet core of elegant fruit. But the structure is taut and grippy — the fine, slightly austere tannins no doubt contributed by the cabernet in the blend. This is a very fine, elegant, beautiful wine. From experience should be at its best from about fifteen years’ age. Some vintages have recently fetched higher prices than Grange at auction.

Penfolds Magill Estate Shiraz 2007 $114.99 (cellar door only)

Grape variety: shiraz

Region: Magill Vineyard, Adelaide

Maturation: 14 months in hogsheads – 63% new French, 32% new American, 5% one-year-old French

The just-released 2007 Magill Estate is a long way from those lighter bodied, short lived experimental wines of the eighties, when its creation saved this historic vineyard from subdivision. It’s a beautiful, floral scented red with deep, supple, elegant fruit melded with spicy oak. It’s comparatively high in alcohol at 14.5% but not heavy or hot – the fruit’s just too good. In our tasting it was flanked and overshadowed by St Henri and RWT. But sipped on its own a few days later showed real class. Gago says production in 2007 was tiny, so it’s available only at cellar door.

Penfolds RWT Barossa Valley Shiraz 2007 $158–$175

Grape variety: shiraz

Region: Northwestern Barossa Valley

Maturation: 13 month in 71% new, 29% one-year-old French oak hogsheads

“RWT” stands for “red wine trial” – a prosaic name for a spectacular wine developed in the nineties and launched with the 1997 vintage. Peter Gago says it’s sourced from the northwestern end of the Barossa – an area favoured by Penfolds and source, too, of much Grange material. This is as good as Barossa shiraz gets – a sensationally plush, soft, refined red with a perfect matching of fruit and French oak. It’s a wonderful contrast to the more muscular Grange. And, says Gago, it protects Grange: With the lovely, refined RWT in the range it’s easier for him to resist misguided calls from some quarters to alter the Grange style.

Penfolds Grange 2005 $500–$550

Grape variety: 96% shiraz; 4% cabernet sauvignon

Region: Barossa, McLaren Vale and Coonawarra.

Maturation: 18 months in new American oak hogsheads

Grange is Grange – inky deep colour, overwhelming aroma and flavour impact of ripe, dense, sweet fruit, mouth-flooding tannins, distinctive flavour of American oak and a unique perky, buoyant lift. This is a great wine of rare dimension. Over many decades it’ll mellow and grow paler, becoming more fragile and ethereal as the decades roll on.

CABERNET AND CABERNET DOMINANT WINES

Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2007 $58–$65

Variety: 54% cabernet sauvignon; 46% shiraz

Region: South Australia, including Coonawarra, McLaren Vale, Langhorne Creek, Padthaway and Barossa

Maturation: 12 months in 39% new American oak hogsheads, 61% older American oak.

Cabernet sets the tone in the 48th vintage of Bin 389 – in the ripe cabernet aromas and flavours and the firm tannins. But shiraz adds mid palate richness and savoury, meaty complexity. It’s hard for any wine to stand next to Grange. But 389 blossomed over a couple of days, outranked by the big guns, but it’s impressive nevertheless and looking good for the cellar.

Penfolds Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $50–$55

Grape variety: cabernet sauvignon

Region: South Australia, including Coonawarra, McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek

Maturation: 13 months in French and American oak, one third new, two thirds older. This is absolutely pure cabernet with aromas and flavours reminiscent of black olive, cassis and a tease of mint; these combine well with the oak, which adds a cedary note. The palate’s intense but elegant, with good flesh and the variety’s firm, gripping tannins.

Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon $170–$190

Grape variety: cabernet sauvignon

Region: Padthaway, Barossa Valley and Coonawarra

Maturation: 15 months in 100% new American oak hogsheads

Bin 707 has Grange-like power and, like Grange, completes its fermentation then matures in new American oak barrels. The oak adds its own distinct, assertive flavour to the well-defined, ripe cabernet flavours. Powerful, grippy tannins complete the picture of an exceptional wine that needs decades to evolve.

Like Grange, Bin 707 attracts some criticism for its style, particularly for the powerful influence American oak has on its aroma and flavour. However, the style won’t be changing says Peter Gago. Instead Penfolds will next year release a contrasting flagship cabernet sauvignon, yet to be named (any ideas?). It’s made entirely from Coonawarra cabernet and matured in French oak. Gago says that just as RWT protects the Grange style, the new cabernet will protect Bin 707.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010

Chapel Hill McLaren Vale

Verdelho 2009 $16–$20 Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $27–$30

Verdelho, one of the classic Madeira varieties, made its way to Australia in the nineteenth century. It thrived as both a fortified and table variety. Today it’s valued as niche white variety, partly because it retains acidity in our warm growing regions. This example from Chapel Hill captures the variety’s fresh, crisp sappy edge and makes an interesting diversion from sauvignon blanc. Though robust, tannic and deeply layered the cabernet, from the exceptionally hot 2008 vintage, shows a tease of green, leafy notes among the riper blackcurrant-like flavours. Not for the faint hearted.

Barwang Hilltops Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $17–$20 Chalkers Crossing Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2008 $18–$20 Cabernet sauvignons from the nearby Hilltops region (Young) generally perform well at the Canberra Regional Wine Show. Barwang, the region’s first vineyard, now owned by McWilliams, shows some of that class in its modestly priced 2008 vintage. It shows pleasantly fleshy, minty, chocolaty varietal flavour and has an assertive, firm tannic grip. It’s well distributed and sometimes deeply discounted. And at a recent masked tasting, Chalkers Crossing Chardonnay 2008, from high, cool Tumbarumba rated well. It’s an understated, elegant style built on high-acid cool-climate fruit flavours but with a textural richness derived from barrel fermentation and maturation.

Bremerton Langhorne Creek

Special Release Malbec 2008 $24 Tamblyn Cabernet Shiraz Malbec Merlot 2008 $17–$19

Malbec has a long history in Langhorne Creek, generally playing a support role to other varieties. Occasionally, though, it stands on its own (as it does in Cahors, France, and widely in Argentina), producing fragrant, deeply coloured, supple, fruity wine with firm but fine tannins. Bremerton comes from the Willson family vineyards, established in 1985. It’s made by Rebecca Willson, daughter of founders Craig and Mignonne. The Tamblyn blend, too, shows Langhorne Creek’s generous fruit and juicy depth – clear cabernet notes leading the harmonious blend. The malbec is available only by mail order and at cellar door. See www.bremerton.com.au

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2010