Yearly Archives: 2005

Wine review — Wynns, Taittinger & d’Arenberg

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2004 $11.40 to $22
Wynns is a magnificent, cellaring red prone to bouts of discounting. Hopefully the $11.40 price offered by 1st Choice last week will come around again somewhere in Canberra. Made by Sue Hodder, the 2004 — benefiting from vineyard rejuvenation and a shortening of time in oak — is fragrant, medium bodied and oozing juicy, Coonawarra berry flavours. Shame on Wynns marketers, though, for lacking the courage to roll it out in screw cap. Hiding behind a ‘test the market’ screen, they’ve limited screw-cap stock to Vintage Cellars. That was fine five years ago as the technology emerged. But it’s now both proven and accepted. Restricting distribution merely deprives many drinkers of the best stock available.

Champagne Taittinger Brut Resérve NV $74.95
With a little more chardonnay in the blend than most NV’s (40 per cent versus about 33 – the remainder pinot noir and pinot meunier), good old Taitts is on the light and cheery side of Champagne, albeit with a rich and creamy mid-palate. Served recently at Chateau Shanahan after a bottle of the intense, pinot-driven Lanson 1996, the guest smile-gauge spun crazily. It could’ve been the second bottle phenomenon. But, no, a sober sip says this is a lovely, delicate aperitif style with the lightness of chardonnay and yummy brioche-like nuances of pinot meunier, the lesser of the two pinots, but indispensable nevertheless.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale d’Arry’s Original Shiraz Grenache 2003 $15 to $20
d’Arry Osborn, father of present d’Arenberg winemaker, Chester, bottled the first of the famous ‘red stripe’ labels in 1959 and in the following two decades made d’Arenberg ‘Burgundy’ an Aussie favourite. The mellow, soft style appealed when young but also aged well for decades – attributes it retained after dropping the French place name, Burgundy, in favour of varietal labelling. The new release is a robust expression of the style with an appealing earthy richness and smoothness plus, being a year older than many new releases, a satisfying red-wine character that comes only with time. The fruit is so delicious that it carries 15 per cent alcohol with ease.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

There’s gold in them thar liquor stores

There’s never been a better time to buy wine. Equally, there’s never been a more confusing time for wine drinkers. For the very glut of producers and labels currently forcing prices down forms an intimidating wall of brands that confounds even professional wine judges.

The diversity of choice and competition-driven low pricing is good, of course. But confusion comes because on any one day at any price you’ll find wines that were made to sell at that price and offer fair value (or, sometimes, poor value) and wines that were made to sell at a much higher price but are now reduced and offer superior quality.

Take, for example the just-released Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2004 (reviewed below). It really does sell for $21 or $22 when not on special. And given its quality, fifty-year pedigree and cellaring ability, that’s a fair price.

Well, it is until you see 1st Choice, Philip, advertising it at $11.40 by the dozen. At that price none of the brands made to sell at $11-$12 a bottle – and found on the shelves away from the red-hot specials — can hold a candle to it.

Unfortunately, Wynns at $11.40 has been and gone between deadlines for this column. But the fact that it happened, and that the market remains tough for producers, almost certainly means that it’ll be back somewhere in the competitive Canberra retail landscape. So, watch for the second coming.

Similarly, really good $17-ish reds – Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2003 and Hardys Oomoo McLaren Vale Shiraz 2004 – have popped up in several retail outlets in recent months at $8.90 a bottle by the dozen.

The former, a multi-region blend, and latter, a straight regional varietal, simply blow the purpose built $9 reds away. These are perennial favourites with retailers, so pile in whenever the numbers come up.

The list of white, red and bubbly bargain goes on. More than ever the astute buyer, cherry picking the best specials, drinks appreciably better wine than the casual or confused buyer grabbing a bottle on the way to dinner or believing that a high price tag is necessarily the best cue to quality.

But what consumer research has consistently shown is that really knowledgeable buyers make up a tiny minority of the wine drinking population and that, faced with such wide choice, most drinkers don’t know where to start.

So how do you identify the gold dust?

If you’re not immersed in wine lore, it’ll take some effort. But it’s possible if you seek advice from wine reviews or a couple of good reference books – and crosscheck these with the weekly press and Internet specials. The effort will be rewarded as it will give you the choice of drinking the quality you’re used to at a lower price or stepping up the quality ladder without paying more.

While favourable reviews from trusted critics make a reliable guide, they’re not always at hand may not cover all of the styles you’re interested in.

It’s therefore useful to invest in two reference books, both of which are updated each year: James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion 2006 ($29.95) and The Penguin Good Wine Guide ($??) by Huon Hooke and Ralph Kyte-Powell.

You could use one or the other. But the combination gives you Halliday’s form guide to 2001 wineries plus Hooke and Kyte-Powell’s wine-by-wine ratings. Armed with these and a list of specials you’ll be on the money.

WINE REVIEWS

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz 2004 $11.40 to $22
Wynns is a magnificent, cellaring red prone to bouts of discounting. Hopefully the $11.40 price offered by 1st Choice last week will come around again somewhere in Canberra. Made by Sue Hodder, the 2004 — benefiting from vineyard rejuvenation and a shortening of time in oak — is fragrant, medium bodied and oozing juicy, Coonawarra berry flavours. Shame on Wynns marketers, though, for lacking the courage to roll it out in screw cap. Hiding behind a ‘test the market’ screen, they’ve limited screw-cap stock to Vintage Cellars. That was fine five years ago as the technology emerged. But it’s now both proven and accepted. Restricting distribution merely deprives many drinkers of the best stock available.

Champagne Taittinger Brut Resérve NV $74.95
With a little more chardonnay in the blend than most NV’s (40 per cent versus about 33 – the remainder pinot noir and pinot meunier), good old Taitts is on the light and cheery side of Champagne, albeit with a rich and creamy mid-palate. Served recently at Chateau Shanahan after a bottle of the intense, pinot-driven Lanson 1996, the guest smile-gauge spun crazily. It could’ve been the second bottle phenomenon. But, no, a sober sip says this is a lovely, delicate aperitif style with the lightness of chardonnay and yummy brioche-like nuances of pinot meunier, the lesser of the two pinots, but indispensable nevertheless.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale d’Arry’s Original Shiraz Grenache 2003 $15 to $20
d’Arry Osborn, father of present d’Arenberg winemaker, Chester, bottled the first of the famous ‘red stripe’ labels in 1959 and in the following two decades made d’Arenberg ‘Burgundy’ an Aussie favourite. The mellow, soft style appealed when young but also aged well for decades – attributes it retained after dropping the French place name, Burgundy, in favour of varietal labelling. The new release is a robust expression of the style with an appealing earthy richness and smoothness plus, being a year older than many new releases, a satisfying red-wine character that comes only with time. The fruit is so delicious that it carries 15 per cent alcohol with ease.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Wine review — Yalumba, Helm & Peter Lehmann

Yalumba ‘Y’ Series South Australia Riesling 2005 $9 to $12
Despite the humble price, ‘Y’ comes from the Barossa and the Eden Valley, key riesling areas. And in the hands of the Yalumba team, you can always count on the flavour and freshness being there. With 52 points out of 60 and a silver medal at the National Show, it outscored many much higher priced 2005 vintage wines. Over time, those wines may overtake ‘Y’. But for current drinking when you want tonnes of fruity aroma and flavour combined with zippy freshness, this is where the value lies. It should continue to drink well over the next two or three years.

Helm Canberra District Premium Riesling $ $33
Ken Helm’s been talking the riesling talk for decades. Now, deservedly, he’s walking the walk with this stunningly good wine. It’s the product of years of incremental adjustments to a winemaking regime applied to the very best grapes from Al Lustenberger’s fastidiously managed Murrumbateman vineyard. All it took was thirty years’ hard work, fuelled by vision, and a benign 2005 growing season that seems to have brought out the best in the variety. This is a wine with a seriously long future: it has the classic citrus and mineral aromatics and taut, intense, steely-yet-delicate palate of classic riesling. This is a great achievement for Ken and a very significant wine for the Canberra district, too. Cellar door phone number is 6227 5953.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $13 to $16
More often than not the very best rieslings reveal more as they age. This was reflected in the recent Barossa wine show results and at the National in Canberra. Amongst the 2005 vintage contenders, the flagship rieslings generally rated behind cheaper commercial releases. But, over time, we are sure to see those delicate, steely flagships surge ahead. Meanwhile, as these mature, there’s huge drinking pleasure in the more revealing, slightly cheaper rieslings like this triple-gold-medal winner from Peter Lehmann. With lovely aromatics, delicious fruit and taut, ultra-fresh, dry finish, it’s a stunning summer drink. Sensational at the price and has good cellaring potential.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Riesling sizzles at the National Wine Show

The sheer delicious pleasure of drinking riesling, young or old, and the efficacy of screw caps for both early drinking and cellaring wines came through at the recent National Wine Show exhibitors’ tasting.

Faced with 1400 wines and just four hours’ tasting time, quick forays into chardonnay, cabernet and shiraz turned to a dedicated look at the 119 rieslings entered across seven classes. Better a leisurely taste of one variety than snippets of everything – especially with such rich pickings on offer.

While the older wines, which we’ll get to later, tell us a lot about the future direction of many younger wines, the current release 2005’s present the best buying opportunities. It was a great vintage.

But very young rieslings are notoriously difficult to judge. Almost invariably at wine shows simpler commercial wines outscore the long-lived classics. Then, as the years roll by, the best wines blossom – providing huge drinking pleasure and raking in gold medals.

In the National’s premium 2005 riesling class, for example, Yalumba’s inexpensive ‘Y’ riesling with 52/60 points outscored its cellar mates – the slightly more expensive Pewsey Vale (51) and the company flagships, Heggies (46.5) and The Contours (44).

Similarly, Leo Buring’s flagship, Leo Buring Leonay DW 117 – a glorious, if austere drop, at 45.5 points languished behind its cellar mates, Buring Clare Valley on 46.5 and Buring Eden Valley on 49.5.

So if the judges reward the second best wines, what are we to make of it? My interpretation is that it’s partly human fallibility – especially when faced with a long line up of delicate, high acid wines; and, partly as a consequence of this, wines of greater fragrance and upfront fruitiness tend to win the day.

And in great years like 2005 a silver medal winning Yalumba Y at $9 to $12 provides really delicious drinking. But you only have to taste older vintages of Heggies and The Contours where, ultimately, quality lies. Indeed, the 2003 Heggies won a gold medal and trophy at the National while The Contours won gold medals for the 2001 and 1999 vintages.

By the way, the top two rieslings in the 2005 premium class are the exceptions that prove the rule: Peter Lehmann Reserve Riesling 2005 (55.5 points, gold medal) is a stayer but struck me as much fuller and richer than normal. The 2003 and 2001 also won gold in another classes.

And Jacob’s Creek Steingarten 2005 (56 points, gold and trophy) is stylistically different from earlier vintages. Normally austere and slow evolving, the 2005, says winemaker Bernard Hickin, was intentionally made to be fuller and riper with an eye on the American market.

In the museum class Steingarten 1997 won gold. But at the exhibitors’ tasting all three of the cork-sealed bottles available tasted different while the screw-capped gold medallists – Pewsey Vale The Contours 1999, Richmond Grove Watervale 1999 and Richmond Grove Watervale 1998 – showed a beautiful combination of maturity and freshness.

Those Richmond Groves, by the way, are perhaps the white bargain of Australian wine. They’re delicious when young, age beautifully and sell for as little $12.90. Unfortunately the lovely gold-medal winning 2005 (small volume commercial classes) won’t be released until September next year. But it’s worth noting as a must-buy.

While the Clare and Eden Valleys almost monopolised the gold medal spots, Houghtons staked a claim for Frankland River, Western Australia, with its minerally and dry 2002 vintage.

WINE REVIEWS

Yalumba ‘Y’ Series South Australia Riesling 2005 $9 to $12
Despite the humble price, ‘Y’ comes from the Barossa and the Eden Valley, key riesling areas. And in the hands of the Yalumba team, you can always count on the flavour and freshness being there. With 52 points out of 60 and a silver medal at the National Show, it outscored many much higher priced 2005 vintage wines. Over time, those wines may overtake ‘Y’. But for current drinking when you want tonnes of fruity aroma and flavour combined with zippy freshness, this is where the value lies. It should continue to drink well over the next two or three years.

Helm Canberra District Premium Riesling $ $33
Ken Helm’s been talking the riesling talk for decades. Now, deservedly, he’s walking the walk with this stunningly good wine. It’s the product of years of incremental adjustments to a winemaking regime applied to the very best grapes from Al Lustenberger’s fastidiously managed Murrumbateman vineyard. All it took was thirty years’ hard work, fuelled by vision, and a benign 2005 growing season that seems to have brought out the best in the variety. This is a wine with a seriously long future: it has the classic citrus and mineral aromatics and taut, intense, steely-yet-delicate palate of classic riesling. This is a great achievement for Ken and a very significant wine for the Canberra district, too. Cellar door phone number is 6227 5953.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Riesling 2005 $13 to $16
More often than not the very best rieslings reveal more as they age. This was reflected in the recent Barossa wine show results and at the National in Canberra. Amongst the 2005 vintage contenders, the flagship rieslings generally rated behind cheaper commercial releases. But, over time, we are sure to see those delicate, steely flagships surge ahead. Meanwhile, as these mature, there’s huge drinking pleasure in the more revealing, slightly cheaper rieslings like this triple-gold-medal winner from Peter Lehmann. With lovely aromatics, delicious fruit and taut, ultra-fresh, dry finish, it’s a stunning summer drink. Sensational at the price and has good cellaring potential.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Wine review — Domaine Day, Glug & McWilliams Hanwood

Domaine Day Eden Valley Garganega 2005, $19.95
Former Chief Winemaker of Orlando, Robin Day, believes he is the first in Australia to plant garganega, the white grape of Soave, in Italy’s Veneto region.  I had to visit Wellington, New Zealand, to taste the wine but have since enjoyed it twice in Australia, most recently at the Glug launch in Canberra last week. Apart from providing a bit of dinner party one-up-man-ship, the wine offers a delicious new spectrum of flavours in the full, racy, tropical-fruit direction. It’s pronounced “gar—gan-e-gar” and no matter how you say it, it’s available from the cellar door, phone number is 08 8524 6224.

Glug Fleurieu Peninsular ‘Our Little Devil’ Petit Verdot 2005, $6.99
Petit verdot, one of the varieties blended with cabernet sauvignon in Bordeaux, tends to make very deeply coloured, high tannin wines. Indeed, most seem a little too tannic. But the variety clearly likes Fleurieu’s maritime climate as Little Devil – made in the Veritas Winery by Barossa winemaker, Kym Teusner — offers loads of upfront sweet, ripe fruit to carry the tannin. It’s a medium bodied, tasty quaffer offering much more interest than any other I can think of at this price. Available at glug.com.au

McWilliams Hanwood Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2005, $8-$12
Consumption of sauvignon blanc and blends of it with semillon have been growing prodigiously for several years. According to McWilliams sales of semillon sauvignon blanc blends in the $9 to $15 price range increased by 34 per cent in the year to September — hence the arrival of this new hopeful under the Hanwood label. With a recommended retail price of $12 it slots into that fast-growing category. But in the real world we’ll probably see it at $7.99 and that price it gives excellent value with its rich lemony, semillon flavour and zesty, herbal sauvignon blanc lift.

Copyight © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Farmer finds independent retail niche

David Farmer — former Canberra wine merchant, in town last week to launch his new Barossa-based business, Glug — believes traditional liquor retailing has gone forever to Coles and Woolworths.
Even after the current margin-sapping wine glut clears, consolidation among producers and retailers virtually ensures a changing landscape.

For independent retailers that means finding a niche that doesn’t go head to head with the superior buying and selling power of the supermarket chains.

And for small winemakers it means finding outlets to complement cellar door sales. For no retailer, no matter how large (or small), can represent the thousands of labels now available from Australia’s 2000 wineries.

What we’re sure to see in the future, then, is not just bricks and mortar independents, but continuing growth in internet-based wine clubs, wine retailers and internet-based cellar-door extensions.

Farmer’s new creation takes into account thirty years’ retailing experience– from 1975 to 1994 as Farmer Bros, with stores plus mail order; from 1994 to 1996 with Cellarmaster Wines, Australia’s largest wine direct marketer; from 1996 to 2003 in partnership with Theo Karedis of Sydney based Theo’s Liquor Markets; and from 2003 to 2005 as marketing consultant to Coles Myer after its purchase of Theo’s.

What those years taught David is that even the keenest wine drinkers and collectors buy mainly in the $6 to $15 a bottle price range. They might enjoy the odd $50 or $100 bottle, but that’s not the daily tipple.
And especially through exposure to wine clubs he saw that the closer to the source the better you’ll buy.

Cellarmaster had demonstrated during the grape gluts of the eighties how profitable it was to buy direct from growers, make wine and put their own label on it. Who needed a middleman?

But Farmer had also enjoyed the pleasures of what he calls ‘the country wines’ of France – simple, tasty and generally inexpensive wines distinctive of a particular grape variety and region.

Transplant that notion to Australia and you have regional varietals – like Barossa shiraz, Clare riesling or Coonawarra cabernet.

With some of this in mind, Farmer established Glug close to the source – in an office within the Veritas Winery on the western edge of Tanunda in the Barossa Valley.

With a vigneron’s licence and the comparatively low overheads of a virtual shop, glug.com.au now offers the first of its own regional wines as well as selections from outstanding small makers – many of whom also make wine for the glug label.

Farmer says each wine will be made and sold to the slogan “from this vineyard, grown by this farmer and made by this winemaker in this winery”.

The close relationship with key growers (including former treasurer John Dawkins) — and winemakers of the calibre of Rolf Binder, Christa Binder-Deans, Trevor Drayton, Kym Teusner, Steve Hoff, Colin Forbes, Robin Day and Wayne Dutschke – means not only increased exposure for these makers, but what looks like being a flow of modestly priced regional specialties for consumers.

While David Farmer – aided by brother Richard – believes that glug occupies a special niche and will appeal to many drinkers, he also believes that success of the concept will take many years.

Looked at in the context of the battle of the retail giants, it strikes me as a highly original approach to wine selling with strong consumer appeal. And it’s unlikely to register at all on the competitor radar screens at Coles and Woolies.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Wine review — Lanson Champagne, St Joseph (Les Vins de Vienne) & Deakin Estate

Lanson Champagne Vintage 1996 $79 to $89
With some of the big name vintage Champagnes pushing beyond $100 a bottle, Lanson 1996 offers sensational value for money. At New Zealand’s ‘Liquorland Top 100’ wine show recently I rated it the best of all the Champagnes and it went on to top the category. It shows the special flavour intensity and finesse of the great 1996 vintage in the distinctive high-acid, firm backbone Lanson style. At nine years’ it’s wonderfully fresh and drinks beautifully as an aperitif. But the flavour intensity, finesse and tight structure all suggest a good cellaring life given suitably cool conditions.

St Joseph (Les Vins de Vienne) 2003 $49.99
This is a Dan Murphy import from Les Vins de Vienne, a company formed by three well-known Rhone Valley producers. Made from shiraz grown at St Joseph in the northern Rhone, it’s a very good, clean expression of the regional style and not marred by the microbial spoilage seen in so many Rhone imports. It’s medium bodied, savoury and finely structured with a core of sweet, ripe, black cherry varietal fruit. My only quibble is that the everyday price seems a bit steep. Perhaps Dan might offer a special to bring it closer to that of Aussie shiraz of comparable quality.

Deakin Estate Shiraz 2004 $8 to $10
Screw cap sealed, this is a bright, fresh and fruity budget-priced red to enjoy right now. It’s sourced primarily from the Murray, in the vicinity of Mildura, but boosted by components from Coonawarra, South Australia, and Victoria’s King and Alpine Valleys.  Fruit, fruit and more fruit seems to be its focus, starting with an attractive ‘cherry and musk’ varietal fragrance that carries brightly across a delicious, soft palate. It’s the sort of red you could chill slightly for those hot summer barbecues. Cellaring? Don’t even think about it. Watch for the specials at around $8.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Penflds RWT 1998 — is this the perfect Barossa Shiraz?

Australia’s great wine icon, Penfolds Grange, is in no danger of demise. But in my view it does have a quality challenger – albeit in a different style – from within its own cellar.

The challenger goes under the name RWT, originally a prosaic acronym for ‘red wine trial’ – a mid nineties project led by John Duval, Penfolds Chief Winemaker at the time.

With increasing volumes of high-quality shiraz available, Duval sought to make a 100 per cent Barossa red expressing the sweet perfume and voluptuous, juicy, soft richness of the variety, complemented by subtle French oak.

What he envisaged – and made – was the antithesis of the opaque coloured, brooding, slow-evolving power of Grange.

The first RWT – from the generally lacklustre 1997 vintage – made a big impression with its wonderful fragrance and supple, fruity palate. There never had been another Penfolds red like this. In fact, it’s hard to recall any Barossa shiraz of this calibre.

In retrospect we might conclude that Duval — like his mentor and creator of Grange, Max Schubert – successfully transformed a vision into an enduring and distinctive wine style.

Of course, reputations can’t be based on one vintage. But RWT comes from what was an already impeccable pedigree: the unique shiraz from the western and north western fringe of the Barossa Valley – a resource integral to the success of Penfolds reds and highly valued by Schubert and by his successors, Don Ditter, John Duval and now Peter Gago.

Subsequent vintages confirmed the power of Duval’s vision even if the market – expressed through auction prices – lags the opinion of experts.

Several recent encounters with RWT prompted these observations. At dinner before the Barossa Wine Show with fellow judges Huon Hooke and Lester Jesberg, we struggled to name even one truly great Barossa shiraz – until Jesberg suggested RWT 1998.

Ah, yes, we all agreed. That was magnificent. Days later, by fate, the as yet unreleased RWT Shiraz 2004 — with that same heady fragrance and lush, silkiness – romped home as top red of the show.

At a judges’ dinner during the show, a line up of red trophy winners from the 2002 show – including RWT 1998 – highlighted the sheer perfection of this wine. Huon commented that each of the reds could have been better in some way – less alcohol, less oak, less tannin – but not RWT. “There’s not a thing you’d want to change in it”, he said. And he was correct.

The same might be said of the 2004 that topped the show this year and of the current release 2002.

With a retail price of between $120 and $140 a bottle, nobody’s going to call Penfolds RWT cheap. But for a wine of this calibre I’d regard it as undervalued when compared with the other great wines of the world.

This, I believe, makes RWT good value for the collector wanting to get in early and build a sequence of what could be seen a few decades from now as one of the very finest Australian reds.

And if you’ve that in mind, do look at current auction prices. Recent sales — varying between $72 for the 1997 and $94 for the 2002 — represent a significant discount on retail price.

Unlike Grange, RWT doesn’t need 15 plus years in the cellar. It seduces from the day its released but has the depth to age well for a decade or two.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Wine review — Ladbroke Grove, d’Arenberg & Pizzini

Ladbroke Grove Coonawarra Riesling 2005 $17.99
This is a little producer to watch. Ladbroke’s Killian Cabernet 2001 won three trophies in the 2003 Limestone Coast Show. This year it was the riesling’s turn. After topping a strong 2005 vintage riesling class it went on to win the Karl Seppelt Trophy. Fruit comes from a northern Coonawarra vineyard, contracted to Ladbroke Grove and made in the Di Giorgio Winery by former Wynns winemaker, Peter Douglas. The wine springs out of the glass with its floral and lemon varietal aroma then lights up the palate with vibrant, very fine lemony flavours. Refreshing, delicate, minerally acids give the wine structure and length – and probably longevity, too.

d’Arenberg ‘The Feral Fox’ Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2004
We all know and love d’Arenberg for its traditional, robust but graceful McLaren Vale reds, built on shiraz, grenache, mourvedre and cabernet sauvignon. But there’s an innovative side to Chester Osborne’s winemaking as well with a raft of lovely Rhone-Valley white styles created in recent years and seriously good chardonnay and pinot noir emerging from the Adelaide Hills. This latest pinot is particularly convincing as it captures the variety’s heady perfume, delicious, plush palate and real red-wine complexity — complete with firm, fine, grippy tannins. And all of this comes in a wine that’s deceptively pale (by McLaren Vale standards). But that’s the enigma of good pinot.

Pizzini King Valley Sangiovese 2004 $25.99
Fred Pizzini visited Canberra last week presenting his King-Valley-grown Italian varietals – the red sangiovese and nebbiolo and the white arneis and verduzzo — at Vintage Cellars, Manuka, and Australian Wine Brokers, Braddon.  This is an impressive line up of beautifully made, brightly flavoured wines that truly express the individuality of each variety – capturing even the elusive fragrant, elegant, tannic magic of nebbiolo, the grape of Piedmont’s Barolo. To get a glimpse of Pizzini’s touch (it’s a vineyard to bottle approach) try this sangiovese. It’s fresh and clean with the variety’s delicious ‘bitter cherry’ flavour and fine, dusty, drying tannins. Cellar door phone 03 5729 8030.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007

Dan Murphy reshapes liquor retailing in Australia

Wine marketers will tell you that drinkers shop around: serious wine collectors cherry pick at numerous outlets; casual shoppers go where it’s convenient; and bargain hunters scour the press and web before leaving home – or pushing the button.

And wine marketers will also tell you that within the context of the massive liquor retail struggle between Coles Myer (Liquorland, Vintage Cellars, First Choice) and Woolworths (Woolworths Liquor, BWS and Dan Murphy) – it’s one brand – Dan Murphy – that’s doing more than any other to reshape the landscape.

Woolworth’s acquired Dan Murphy – a then Melbourne based large-format liquor retailer, specialising in wine — for several tens of millions of dollars in 1998.

In retrospect, the buying price was a bargain as Woolies acquired not just five stores in Melbourne but a proven and potent business model that had been honed and polished for decades by the original owner, Dan Murphy, with support, in later years, from a partner, Tony Leon.

Rare for a predatory big company, Woolworths resisted any temptation to engulf Dan Murphy with its own culture. Instead, it left Leon to run the business separately from Melbourne (Woolies head office is in Sydney) while providing the resources to spearhead a nation wide expansion.

The rollout from 5 stores in Melbourne in 1998 to 43 nationally in 2005 (two in Canberra with another to come), appears to have bulldozed archrival and former liquor market leader, Coles Myer Liquor Group.

The strategic advantage of having acquired Dan Murphy and exploiting the business model has now become apparent.

In Sydney this week, Tony Leon said that the business – apart from being much larger – still runs substantially at it did under the late Dan Murphy. He said, “It’s not complicated. We’re traders. We buy and sell liquor and that’s what we work on”.

Part of the success, he says, lies in having a long-term view. “When we open a new store we expect it to take three years to perform well”. The principal, he said, was expressed in something Dan Murphy once told him, “Tony, no single advertisement works. But advertising works”.

And if you’ve looked at Dan Murphy’s ads over the years, you’ll have seen that they’re direct and single minded: “Nobody beats Dan Murphy”, they scream. And the outlets back the scream with a raft of specials and a unique in-store experience: prairie-like space bristling with wines, beers and spirits.

Such is the appeal of the offer that a typical store, says Leon, draws customers from within a 20-30 minute travelling distance. Naturally, this has a dramatic effect on competitors within that catchment – including other outlets owned by Woolworths. Nothing in the history of liquor retailing in Australia, I believe, has had such competitive impact.

Indeed Coles Myer responded to the Dan Murphy threat with a look-alike offer – First Choice – now being rolled out nationally, with one outlet already operating at Philip.

But nothing’s ever the final word in retail (or anything else). Local, independents like Jim Murphy, Georges Liquor Stable, Cand Amber and Australian Winebrokers, each in its own way, continues to fight for and earn part of our liquor dollar. As do our dozens of independent, licensed supermarkets catering to the convenience factor.

All of this, in conjunction with a wine surplus, spells a field day for wine drinkers in the immediate future. Longer term, market consolidation could make it difficult for smaller makers to find outlets, thus reducing diversity. However, if demand is there, that could be a profitable niche for future, fast-moving independents.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2005 & 2007