Yearly Archives: 2013

Masked tastings – the palate stripped bare

13 March 2013Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Masked tastings became part of my life 36 years ago when I joined the liquor trade. The tastings take many forms, involving anything from one or two wines, to competitive wine games, right through to judging hundreds of wines over several days.

Retailing and tasting brought me into contact with many wine lovers outside the trade. Some became life-long friends. Indeed, one group I met through my retail tastings more than twenty years ago, welcomed me, in turn, to their tastings, which they continue to hold every two months.

Needless to say, the people in the group love their wines. But they’re not so dippy that wine nudges everything else aside. So the group’s tastings became dinner parties, attractive even to a few spouses who’d rather drink wine than talk about it.

Everyone brings a plate and their own glasses and chip in for the wine. The host provides a main course and selects and sources the wines. The guests know nothing about the wines being served.

Stripping away the label, bottle and price, leaves tasters little but their senses to rely on. So as the wines come out, the group, prompted by questions from the host, gradually work out what the wines are.

Without the label to guide us, we first note the characteristics of the wine. Whether this leads to identification depends on many factors. Is the wine a good example of its style (better wines are easier to recognise)? Does the wine go beyond our frame of reference, leaving us wondering or guessing? Are our palates in good shape tonight? And, importantly, what do we know about the host’s likes and buying habits?

The latter point comes up in all wine games and naturally becomes part of the fun. But the knowledge can backfire.

In our most recent tasting, we quickly identified the mystery bubbly as Australian, not French and a vintage rather than non-vintage. Where in Australia, asked the host? Well, a wine this fine and delicate had to come from one of the cool-climate specialty areas – not Tasmania as it was too fruity. Tumbarumba became the front-runner, simply because our host almost always spruiks the area.

Wrong, but close he said, derailing our thoughts. With no sparkling area of note immediately north Tumbarumba, we headed south of the Murray to the Whitlands vineyard, in the high country above the King Valley. Yes, he confirmed, you are drinking Brown Brother Patricia Pinot Noir Chardonnay 2006 ($40). Bingo.

Two very young whites arrived next, the first light, floral and musk-like in its gentle flavour; the second fuller bodied and firmer, with an unappealing touch of grey to the colour. The vintage came easily – 2012– but not the variety, with only one female and no males suggesting the correct answer, riesling.

These were OK wines, from a stellar riesling vintage, but not ones I’d be buying or recommending, although they enjoyed some support from other tasters. They were Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Portrait Riesling 2012 ($15–$19) and Robert Oatley Great Southern Riesling 2012 ($17–$18)

The identity of the next two wines proved equally elusive, explained largely by their obscurity and the cold, wet, difficult, 2011 vintage they came from. We eventually found ourselves in Victoria’s King Valley again, guessing at obscure grape varieties.

With some difficulty (and prompting by the host) we unveiled the first wine as Pizzini King Valley Arneis 2011 ($23) – a dry white with distinctive jube-like fruit flavour and savoury finish. It was OK, but I’ve tried better vintages of this wine.

Gapstead King Valley Petit Manseng 2011 ($22) beat us all. In the 2011 vintage this variety, originally from south-western France, produced a full bodied, deeply coloured sweetish wine with the distinct, and likely unintended, flavour of botrytis. Not my cup of tea at all.

Luckily a thrilling and distinctive bracket of reds followed, instantly recognisable as Canberra district shiraz from the cold 2011 vintage. These were beautiful wines, showing the intense spicy, lightly peppery character of cool-grown shiraz, just on the edge of ripeness – evidenced, too, in the light-to-medium body and fine-boned, tight tannins.

Wines one and three in the group were Nick O’Leary Canberra District Shiraz 2011 ($28) and Nick O’Leary Canberra District Bolaro Shiraz 2011 ($55) – both gold medal winners. Their stories are worth recounting.

Nick O’Leary Canberra District Shiraz 2011 201 $28
O’Leary says this wine demonstrates the benefits of good vineyard management and liaison between the growers and makers. Good growers, especially after the destructive 2011 season, realised the need for intense vineyard management and crop reduction to suit the season. At Nanima vineyard, “driving force of the wine”, a well-drained site helped, but “great also great management” produced the goods, says O’Leary. The Fischers shoot thinned, and at veraison dropped half the fruit off the vines, enabling greater flavour concentration and quicker ripening. He sourced the remaining high quality grapes from Wallaroo Wines, Hall, and Long Rail Gully, Murrumbateman. The wine contains about five per cent viognier, though this is not obvious in the aroma or flavour. Judges awarded a gold medal in Canberra as well as Melbourne.

This is magnificent cool-climate shiraz – revealing Canberra berry fruit, spiciness and even a touch of pepper, emphasised by the cold vintage. The medium bodied palate presents, too, a savoury element and a pleasing, lean, dry palate – though the fine tannins provide adequate flesh.

Nick O’Leary Bolaro Canberra District Shiraz 2011 $55
By a strange quirk of fate, this wine shares more than an equal billing at the Melbourne show with Best’s Great Western Bin 1 Shiraz. O’Leary explained, “In Canberra Hardy’s recommended clones from their experience in South Australia. Most didn’t work. It’s expensive but more suitable once are being introduced”. In this instance the Fischer’s grafted the Great Western clone onto the roots of a lesser clone. “It’s one of the great shiraz clones for Canberra”, says O’Leary.

And its first outing tends to confirm that. The Melbourne judges ranked it slightly ahead of the standard shiraz –perhaps noting the extra savouriness, flavour depth and firmer structure of a very classy, cellarable wine indeed. “I made Bolaro for the future”, says O’Leary.

O’Leary’s two wines flanked Alex McKay’s Collector Reserve Canberra District Shiraz 2011 ($58). On its release almost a year ago, the wine showed hints of sulphide character which, at a low-level, complements cool-climate shiraz flavour. At our recent tasting, however, the sulphides initially dominated the aroma, although we all noted the beautiful silky depth of the palate. The sulphides had largely dispersed two hours later, though some tasters still disliked the character. By this time the wine (sourced from the Kyeema and Fischer vineyards) was unbelievably luscious and silky on the palate – suggesting it simply needs time in bottle, or a very good splash if you’re drinking it now.

On the other hand, cool-grown shiraz, especially one with as a high whole-bunch component as McKay’s, can included an earthy, burned-rubber note not derived from sulhpides. McKay believes this is the case with his very complex wine.

After this the host took us through two very good 2010 vintage Coonawarra cabernet sauvignons (Wynns and Redmans). But the other great and easily identified wine of then night proved to be a sweet, unique German riesling – Schloss Vollrads Auslese 2009 (half bottle $40). Fragrant, light, delicate and just seven and half per cent alcohol, it could only have come from the Rhine or Mosel Rivers – in this instance from the Rheingau region on the Rhine River.

Wine review — Brand’s Laira, Tar and Roses, Juniper Crossing, Holm Oak, Katnook Estate and Marchand and Burch

13 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Brand’s Laira One Seven One Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 $65
No. 1 block, Brand’s Laira vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
Reminiscent of a digger on Anzac Day, the bottle bristles with hard-won gongs; 19 golden stickers, representing 12 gold medals and seven trophies. The wine, previously released as The Patron, comes from a block of vines planted by Eric Brand in 1971. McWilliams owns Brands now and clearly provide all the resources Peter Weinberg requires to coax the best from the vineyard and capture fruit quality in the wine. This is intense, elegant cabernet of a very high order. High alcohol makes the finish a little hot – one tiny blemish in a near perfect wine. The 2010 vintage won the cabernet section of the recent Winewise Championships.

Tar and Roses Sangiovese 2012 $21–24
Heathcote, Victoria
Don Lewis and Narelle King make wine in Spain as well as in Victoria, offering Miro, a multi-varietal Spanish blend and, from Australia, nebbiolo, sangiovese, shiraz, tempranillo and pinot grigio. Lewis and King note the balance between tannin and acidity in Italy’s thin-skinned sangiovese and write, “It is known for its earthy more than fruity notes”. Their comments sum up this delicious red. It’s medium bodied with ripe, cherry-like fruit flavours tightly bound by the assertive, fine tannins and brisk acidity. The earthy, savouriness and persistence of the tannins sets it apart from Australia’s generally more fruity red wine styles.

Juniper Crossing Chardonnay 2011 $20
Juniper Estate vineyards, Margaret River, Western Australia
Juniper Estate’s entry-level chardonnay is fermented and matured in oak barrels, 15 per cent of them new. But the lively freshness of the wine and juicy fruit flavour demonstrate the easy drinking beauty of modern Australian chardonnay – where oak barrels build texture and add only subtly to wine flavours, enhancing, not belting the fruit. For $20, perhaps less if the retailers give it a run, you get absolutely delicious, satisfying drinking.

Holm Oak Wild Fermented Riesling TGR 2012 $22
Holm Oak Vineyard, Tamar Valley, Tasmania
Forget everything you know about Australian rieslings before trying Rebecca Duffy’s version. She picks the grapes early, with high acidity and low sugar, then allows the unclarified juice to undergo a spontaneous fermentation in oak barrels. This is in contrast to the conventional method: fermenting at least partially clarified juice in temperature controlled stainless steel tanks with a selected yeast strain. The result is a sweet (30 grams per litre of sugar), low alcohol (eight per cent) riesling of intense, apple-like varietal flavour with dazzling acidity offsetting the sweetness. A low-level but persistent earthiness reminds us of the wild ferment, though this becomes just part of a unique and appealing sweetie.

Katnook Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $34–$40
Coonawarra, South Australia
Katnook Estate, Coonawarra’s second largest vineyard owner after Treasury Wine Estates, is part of Wingara Wine Group, owned by Spain’s Freixinet. Despite changes of ownership, however, Wayne Stehbens remains winemaker after thirty-odd years. In 2010 he made the best cabernet I’ve seen from the estate in several years. It’s Coonawarra cabernet as it should be – fully ripe, with precise, black-olive varietal aromas and flavours and sufficient flesh on the mid palate to carry the firm but fine tannins inherent to the variety. It should drink well over the next ten years.

Marchand and Burch Chardonnay 2011 $73
Porongurup, Great Southern, Western Australia
Marchand and Burch is a collaboration of Burgundy’s Pascal Marchand and Western Australia’s Jeff Burch, owner of Howard Park Wine. For this wine, the pair sourced fruit from Porongurup, a small, elevated region about 50 kilometres north of Albany. The comparatively cool site produces intensely flavoured chardonnay capable of responding well to wild-yeast fermentation in oak barrels – a more thought-provoking wine, for example, than the easy-drinking Juniper Crossing chardonnay reviewed today. The power of the fruit, in conjunction with the barrel work, produced a multi-layered wine to linger over and marvel at.

Wine review — Wicks Estate, Pindarie and Tar and Roses

10 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wicks Estate Adelaide Hills Shiraz 2010 $16.15–$20
Wicks Estate’s gold-medal winning shiraz appealed strongly to me while judging the recent Winewise Championship in Canberra. Against powerful competition, it failed to make the finals. But it offers absolutely delicious drinking right now. Estate-grown and made, it shows the ripe-berry, spice and medium body of cool-grown shiraz – the fresh, juicy, berry flavours, in particular, light up a gentle, completely seductive palate. The winemaker says, “the elegant fruit and tannin structure will reward careful cellaring”. This may be true. But it’s hard to imaging the wine every being more charming than it is now, just bristling with fruit.

Pindarie Barossa Valley La Femme Savagnin 2011 $16
A friend brought this to a tasting where it provided attractive, light, refreshing distraction from a run of solid reds. The wine comes from Pindarie vineyard, on the Barossa Valley’s western ridge. Most likely the owners thought they were planting the Spanish variety albarino. But Australia’s “albarino” stocks turned out to be savagnin blanc and wines made from the variety are now generally marketed simply as “savagnin”. The light-bodied, vibrant wine leans more to savouriness than fruitiness – making it good company for the black olives sitting near it at the tasting. The website (pindarie.com.au) now offers the 2012 vintage.

Tar and Roses Central Victoria Pinot Grigio 2012 $18
The light bronze tint of Tar and Roses points to the origin of pinot grigio (or pinot gris, literally “grey pinot”) – a mutant of Burgundy’s noble red variety, pinot noir. Like the red version, the white mutant grows best in cool climates. But the range of flavours (or lack of it) and styles varies so widely in Australia, it’s sometimes hard to believe they’re all made from the same variety. This one, however, captures much of the elusive pinot character, in this instance a full-bodied, crisp, richly textured, bone-dry white with a notably savoury, tannic bite.

Winewise championship — Australia’s grand final wine show

6 March 2013WineChris Shanahan

Depending on how you view wine shows, Canberra region is either blessed or burdened with a disproportionate number of nationally significant events. These include the National Wine Show of Australia, Winewise Small Vignerons Awards, Winewise Championship, Canberra International Riesling Challenge and Canberra Regional Wine Show.

The national show, billed as the grand final of Australia’s capital city shows, limits entries in many classes to medal winners from other shows it recognises.

Taking this concept a step further, our homegrown Winewise Championship, sets a gold-medal entry standard. Event organiser, Lester Jesberg, says only gold medallists in non-commercial classes of decent wine shows may enter. Acceptable events include Australia’s capital-city and leading regional shows as well as the international riesling challenge, Winewise Small Vignerons awards and wines awarded gold-medal scores in the show-style tastings Winewise conducts throughout the year.

On establishing the championship in 2010, Jesberg commented, “While the National Show has now revised its eligibility criteria to recognize the Winewise Small Vigneron Awards and selected regional shows, many smaller producers still find the criteria hard to meet and confine their wines to the regional shows, thus missing out on valuable benchmarking across the national spectrum. This competition brings all the wines together for the benefit of both winemakers and consumers.”

This year’s event – judged, appropriately, in the Black Opal room, overlooking Canberra racecourse – brought together about 300 wines from producers of all sizes. Three days of tasting by Lester Jesberg and Deb Pearce of Winewise and a shifting panel of senior show judges, myself included, produced an exciting range of category winners from small, medium and large producers.

Tasmania alone of the wine producing states missed out on a gong (the Canberra district also missed out). And Queensland’s Granite Belt earned a rare moment of glory on the national stage. Symphony Hill Reserve Granite Belt Petit Verdot 2009 topped the “other red variety” category in a close taste-off against Rosemount Nursery Mataro 2011.

And in a rare achievement at a racecourse, a conventional form guide, albeit a regional-varietal one would’ve predicted almost all of the winners.

The best chardonnay came from Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula; the best riesling from the Clare Valley; the best sauvignon from the Adelaide Hills; the best sauvignon blanc semillon from Margaret River; best viognier from the Eden Valley; best sweet riesling from the Eden Valley; best cabernet sauvignon from Coonawarra; best cabernet merlot blend from Margaret River; best classic Australian red blend from Coonawarra; best grenache blend from McLaren Vale (it was either there or the Barossa); best pinot noir from the Adelaide Hills; and best fortified wine from Rutherglen.

A form guide might not have picked the successful wineries. But that’s the beauty of masked judging: remove the biases and all that counts is what’s in the glass.

However, some of the exceptions to conventional regional-varietal wisdom point to gaps in the ranks. For example, Centennial Vineyards Blanc de Blancs NV, wonderful wine that it is, isn’t Australia’s best sparkling wine; not by a long shot. A perennial problem in Australian wine shows is the dearth of really top sparklers winning the top awards.

And when it comes to emerging varieties like lagrein and tempranillo, we’re a long way short of knowing which regions perform best. The results, therefore, might be a pointer to the future, though it’s too early to say yet.

But to me the biggest surprise of the show came with the success of a Bathurst shiraz. After a number of shiraz heats, Winburndale Bathurst Solitary Shiraz 2009 competed in the final against wines from Coonawarra, the Barossa Valley, Swan Valley and Adelaide Hills.

I judged the shirazes, voting in the heats and the final for a plush and velvety wine that turned out to be Shaw and Smith Adelaide Hills 2009. However, the other judges disagreed, and the Winburndale shiraz (my second choice), edged into first place, on 34 points, ahead of Brands Laira Coonawarra Tall Ship Shiraz 2010, on 32.

This was a tight and high quality competition, so there can be no caveats about the virtues of Winburndale. The lovely wine says Australia’s versatile signature red has yet another home, and another expression, in the high country of the Great Dividing Range.

Shiraz is Canberra district’s flagship wine, but Eden Road 2011 was the only one entered. It looked light and simple in its group – a decent wine, but showing the shortcomings of the cold, wet 2011 vintage. We would hope to see more Canberra shiraz and higher rankings with future entries from warmer, less challenging vintages.

Three Canberra district rieslings from the 2012 vintage were entered – Clonakilla, Ravensworth and Four Winds. Clonakilla topped its group, but came second to Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2012 in the taste-off of 2012 rieslings. The Buring wine went on to win the riesling medallion. This was no surprise given the exceptional quality of Clare and Eden Valley rieslings in 2012.

Unlike other shows where any number of wines can win bronze, silver or gold medal wines, the Winewise Championship awards only one wine in each category (results below). Each category winner receives a gold-plated medallion struck by the Australian Mint.

The wines are assessed in small groups – a maximum of seven. The judges know only the class definition – for example, “Shiraz group 1 vintages 2006–2009” and all they see is the glasses lined up in front of them on grids, marked A, B, C and so on.

Without any discussion, the judges rate each of the wines on a ballot paper – 9 points for the favourite, 6 for the second favourite, then 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0. Where there are less than seven wines, judges simply don’t use the bottom scores. The winner of each group is the wine with the highest aggregate, though some weighting may be given to the number of first and second places each receives where the aggregates are close.

Jesberg, a former statistician, says the scoring system attempts to ensure that a wine can win only if it has at least one score of nine (or first place) from one of the judges. In practice, most the better wines received two or more first places. But in very high-quality groupings, ratings tended to be more dispersed.

Group winners move on to taste offs, ultimately for the category winner. In the shiraz class, for example, we tasted eight groups of wines, with two mini taste-offs, before assessing the final five outstanding wines, any of which I’d be happy to have on the dinner table.

The honours list, then, includes household names like Wynns, Leo Buring and Yalumba as well as small makers at the cutting edge of their craft.

Winewise Championship 2013 – medallion winner

Chardonnay
Paringa Estate Mornington Peninsula 2011

Riesling
Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2012

Sauvignon blanc
Shaw and Smith Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2012

Sauvignon blanc blend
Warner Glen Estate PBF Margaret River Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2011

Semillon
Meerea Park Hunter Valley Terracotta Semillon 2006

Other white varietal
Yalumba The Virgilius Eden Valley Viognier 2010

Sweet white
Heggies Vineyard Eden Valley Botrytis Riesling 2011

Cabernet Sauvignon
Brands Laira One Seven One Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2010

Cabernet Bordeaux-style blend
Mandoon Margaret River Cabernet Merlot 2010

Classic Australian Blend
Wynns Coonawarra Estate V and A Lane Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz 2010

Grenache or blend
Rosemount Estate McLaren Vale GSM (grenache shiraz mourvedre) 2011

Italian red variety
Geoff Hardy Hand Crafted Limestone Coast Lagrein 2010

Other red blend
Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2010

Other red varietal
Symphony Hill Reserve Granite Belt Petit Verdot 2009

Pinot Noir
Tim Knappstein Riposte The Sabre Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2010

Shiraz
Winburndale Bathurst Solitary Shiraz 2009

Tempranillo
Centennial Vineyards Reserve Southern Highlands Tempranillo 2011

Fortified wine
Morris Rutherglen Rare Liqueur Muscat

Sparkling white
Centennial Blanc de Blancs NV

Sparkling red
Quelltaler Watervale Sparkling Shiraz NV

Judges by class

Day 1: Lester Jesberg, Deb Pearce, Ian McKenzie, Jane Faulkner, Peter Nixon, Tim James.
Sparkling white, sparkling red, riesling, cabernet sauvignon, tempranillo, other red varietal, other red blends, classic Australian red blend, fortified.

Day 2: Lester Jesberg, Deb Pearce, Ian McKenzie, Tim James, Chris Shanahan
Semillon, other white varietals, shiraz, sweet white.

Day 3: Lester Jesberg, Deb Pearce, Tim Knappstein, Nick Bulleid, Tim Kirk.
Sauvignon blanc-semillon blends, sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, pinot noir, grenache and blends, Italian red varietals, cabernet Bordeaux-style blends.

Winewise’s Lester Jesberg writes about the championship

The concept of the Winewise Championship was born in the years I judged at the National Wine Show. The founders of that show had displayed considerable vision over 25 years ago in bringing together some of the best wines from the state capital shows, but I felt the concept needed a revamp.

Even though shows like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide still receive strong industry support, having judged at them, I began to view them as “medal factories” with very large classes that are impossible to judge properly. I decided that regional shows (i.e. wine shows confined to the wines of single regions) produced more reliable results and provided a more accurate picture of wine quality. Put them all together, and we have a good representation of the complex mosaic that is Australian wine.

That formed the basis of my approach to a national wine show. Invite all the gold medal winners from the regionals and a few speciality shows like the International Riesling Challenge to enter, and wait and see what happened.

The response has been fantastic, and instead of spending days dealing with seemingly interminable line-ups of wines from different and contrasting regions, we would taste the wines in groups no larger than seven and simply rank them in order of preference, awarding nine to the best, six, four, three, two, one down to zero for the last. The grouping would be left to the stewards and would be based on grape variety, vintage and origin. In the case of large numbers of entries, there would be a number of heats and a final. Forget scoring out of 20 or 100. It simply wasn’t necessary.

Shiraz and chardonnay stand out

Every medallion-winner is a wine of excellence, but the strongest classes were chardonnay and shiraz. Both showed considerable diversity of style, and the wines that rose to the top were world class. The chardonnay heat winners were:

2011 First Creek Wines Winemakers Reserve Hunter Valley Chardonnay
2011 Gralyn Wildberry Springs Reserve Margaret River Chardonnay
2011 Paringa Estate Mornington Peninsula Chardonnay
2011 Seville Estate Reserve Yarra Valley Chardonnay
2010 Barwang Estate 842 Tumbarumba Chardonnay
2010 Seville Estate Reserve Yarra Valley Chardonnay
2009 Wolf Blass White Label Chardonnay
2008 Seville Estate Reserve Yarra Valley Chardonnay

Shiraz
2009 Saltram No.1 Barossa Shiraz
2009 Winburndale Solitary Shiraz (Bathurst, NSW)
2009 Shaw + Smith Adelaide Hills Shiraz
2010 Honey Moon Vineyard Adelaide Hills Shiraz
2010 Brands Laira Tall Vine Coonawarra Shiraz
2010 Fox Gordon Hannah’s Swing Barossa Valley Shiraz
2010 Rojomoma Red Art Barossa Valley Shiraz
2011 Voyager Estate Margaret River Shiraz
2011 Mandoon Old Vine Swan Valley Shiraz

The chardonnay final presented us with a difficult task. The wines were so good that four different wines received first place points from the five judges. The end result was so close that it was unanimously agreed any of the four could have won without complaint from any judge. Chardonnay has taken great steps forward in the past decade, and the finalists were all complex and barrel-fermented, but at the same time driven by fresh, intense fruit. The coarse, oaky style of chardonnay is thankfully disappearing.

The fact that a shiraz from a small producer 20 km east of Bathurst won the shiraz medallion may surprise some, but not the crew at Winewise. Winburndale has done very well at the Small Vigneron Awards and the National Cool Climate Wine Show. The result was again very close, with each of the five finalists receiving a first place vote.

Riesling also deserves a special mention, and the high quality of the 2012 South Australian vintage was reinforced by the Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling that just edged out the 2006 Peter Lehmann Wigan.

The Winewise Championship was judged over three days, and recognised the fact that it’s often difficult for judges to commit to that amount of time. Consequently ten judges participated, two doing the full three days, the others two or one. It’s an approach some shows would do well to consider.

Lester Jesberg

Wine review — Jacob’s Creek, Bay of Fires, Pewsey Vale, Dandelion Vineyard, Half Moon and Peter Lehmann

6 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Jacob’s Creek Reserve Chardonnay 2012 $10.70–$18
Adelaide Hills, South Australia
The high quality of South Australia’s 2012 whites shines through again in Jacob’s Creek Reserve Chardonnay. We quaffed a couple of bottles with Thai food in Terrigal a few weeks back, alongside the Pewsey Vale Riesling 2012, also reviewed today. I rated Pewsey Vale a better match with the spicy food. But an after-dinner glass of the bone-dry, more savoury chardonnay couldn’t have been nicer. It delivered the full, but refined, deep, nectarine-like flavour of cool-grown chardonnay – the flavour completely integrated with minerally, fresh acidity. We bought two bottles for $24 at Vintage Cellars, but Dan Murphy offers it as I write at $10.70 each in six-bottle lots. A few days after our Terrigal dinner, it won a trophy at the Royal Sydney Wine Show.

Bay of Fires Pinot Noir 2011 $32.30–$37
Tasmania
In November, Bay of Fires 2011 won the National Wine Show pinot noir trophy, repeating the success of the 2009 vintage at the 2010 show. And last month it hauled in the trophies again at the Royal Sydney Wine Show. We tried it over dinner recently alongside Giaconda Yarra Valley Beechworth 2008 ($85.49) and Eileen Hardy Tasmania Yarra Valley 2008 ($61.75). Eileen Hardy, Bay of Fires cellar mate, won the day. But runner up, Bay of Fires, ticked all the pinot boxes, except that of maturity. It’s a baby now, but a beautiful one, and only needs time for the intense, fine, fruit to take on secondary savoury, earthy notes. This is a beautiful pinot, largely undiscovered.

Pewsey Vale Riesling 2012 $14.95–$18
Pewsey Vale Vineyard, Eden Valley, South Australia
Pewsey Vale riesling comes from the Hill-Smith family’s 50-hectare Pewsey Vale vineyard, located on the edge of the Eden Valley. Louisa Rose makes the wine just a few kilometres down the hill at the Yalumba Winery, Angaston, centre of the Hill-Smith wine operations. We bought our bottles ($16.66 each) at Vintage Cellars, Terrigal, as company – perfect, as it turned out – for Thai food. The full, fruity, limey richness of an outstanding vintage and ultra-fresh acidity meshed well with the fresh ingredients and sweet, tangy, spiciness of the food. A couple of the diners preferred Jacob’s Creek Reserve Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2012 (wine of the week). But the majority voted with their tongues, draining the riesling bottles first.

Dandelion Vineyards Legacy of the Barossa
30-year-old Pedro Ximenez $27.50 375ml
Lindner vineyard, Barossa Valley, South Australia
Fortunately for drinkers Australia’s treasure trove of wonderful old fortified wines seldom reflect the true price of production. Dandelion’s wonderful pedro ximenez, for examples, averages 30 years in oak barrel from a hoard established by the Lindner family in 1944. In the old days, before Europe reclaimed its wine names, we might have called this “oloroso sherry”. But the maker now uses the varietal name for a magnificent, luscious, yellow-rimmed, amber-orange fortified. It delivers the concentrated autumn-leaf flavours and tangy, fiery edge unique to ancient, oak-aged fortified wines.

Half Moon Moonlight Shiraz 2011 $21
Half Moon Vineyard, Braidwood, NSW
At a stretch of the imagination, such a fine-boned shiraz may well have been ripened under moonlight. More likely though it’s light-to-medium body and peppery, spicy varietal flavour reflect a cold vintage in a cold location. Despite adverse vintage conditions, though, the grower clearly harvested sufficient healthy fruit for Alex McKay to make a really attractive, early-drinking style. It’s lighter bodied, but rich on varietal flavour, with a taut, elegant structure and savoury tannins creating a food-friendly finish.

Peter Lehmann Stonewell Shiraz 2008 $90–100
Stonewell, Barossa Valley, South Australia
Peter Lehmann’s flagship shiraz gets its name from Stonewell, a favoured shiraz growing sub-region in the western Barossa Valley. The wine, capable of ageing for many years, evolved in style over time from a fairly burly, oaky style to the finer product we enjoy today. Winemaker Andrew Wigan’s gradual refinements allowed full, ripe, shiraz to shine through in its unique Barossa way. This is a densely coloured, crimson-rimmed red with deep, sweet fruit cut through with chewy, tender Barossa tannins – a bold, time-proven Barossa statement.

Beer review — The Little Brewing Company

6 March 2013Beer reviewChris Shanahan

The Little Brewing Company Wicked Elf Pilsner 330ml $4.40
Wicked Elf Pilsner comes from The Little Brewing Company, Port Macquarie, NSW. It’s a local expression of the classic Bohemian style, brewed from European pilsner malt and the classic Saaz hops from the Czech republic. The deep lemon-gold colour and full malty body appeal, but the hops proved a little tough and hard for my palate.

Wig and Pen brews Canberra centenary ale

6 March 2013Beer, Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Canberra’s centenary celebrations kicked off early at the Wig and Pen. In January, the popular Civic brewpub released Centenary Ale, brewed from malted barley, raw wheat, oats and cane sugar.

Brewer Richard Watkins says this recipe – in tandem with fairly high fermentation temperatures – reflects brewing ingredients and styles of a century ago, before refrigeration reached today’s sophistication.

“Four Seasons Ale” might suit as an alternative name as Watkins intends tweaking the style during the year. The current, light-lemon coloured, summer brew will give way to autumn leaf colours and richer malt; then beef up to pudding-like richness in winter; take on hoppy floral character in spring; then finish back on the original summer ale.

They’ll be gradual changes, he says, as he subtly alters each of the 26 brews planned for 2013.

Wig and Pen Centenary Ale half-pint $6The Wig’s carbonated, unfiltered beer presents with a cloudy, light-lemon colour and dense, pure-white head. The aroma’s intensely fruity and pleasantly seasoned with spicy hops. The lively palate, fresh as bread from the oven, refreshes and thrills with its brisk acidity – a complex but easy drinking ale.

Wine review — Devil’s Corner, Holm Oak, McWilliams, Mr Riggs and Port Phillip Estate

27 February 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Devil’s Corner Pinot Noir 2011 $14.95–$21.90
East Coast and Tamar Valley, Tasmania
It takes grapes grown in suitably cool climates to make ripe and tasty but elegant wines. This rationale, applied particularly to pinot noir and chardonnay, led Brown Brothers of Milawa, Victoria, to buy Tamar Ridge, Tasmania, from Gunns in 2010. The purchase gave Browns a winery, vineyards in the Tamar Valley and on the East Coast, and the Tamar Ridge and Devil’s Corner brands. These were good wines already. But Brown Brothers’ winemaking and marketing skills broadens their distribution and tweaks the quality. The beautifully re-packaged Devil’s Corner range includes this convincing, lighter bodied pinot noir. Spicy, savoury and peppery notes season the vibrant varietal fruit flavour. And fine tannins add their grip to the silky, easy palate. The recommended price is $21.90, but it’s available for as little as $14.95. These are keen prices for cool-grown, high quality, drink-now pinot.

Devil’s Corner Pinot Grigio 2012 $15–19.90
Tasmania
Pinot noir’s white-grey mutant, pinot grigio (or gris) delivers its best flavour when it’s grown in a cool climate like Tasmania’s. Devil’s Corner’s version captures the variety’s elusive pear-like flavour on a richly textured palate, cut with pleasantly tart tannins and acids – the latter at a higher level than we generally see in the variety. This is a positive feature as means greater freshness and suitability with food.

Holm Oak Vineyards Sauvignon Blanc 2012 $20–$25
Tamar Valley, Tasmania
Winemaker Rebecca Duffy and husband Tim lease the 12-hectare Holm Oak vineyard from Rebecca’s parents, Ian and Robyn Wilson. The Duffys grow, make and bottle all of their wine on site. The excellent 2012 vintage produced a highly aromatic sauvignon blanc, tempered by barrel fermentation of about one fifth of the blend. The barrel component also added texture to an otherwise exuberant, fruity, dry sauvignon, leaning towards the passionfruit end of the variety’s flavour spectrum.

McWilliams 1877 Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $65
McLaren Vale and Coonawarra, South Australia and Hilltops, NSW
McWilliams’ flagship red follows an old Australian tradition of blending components from several different regions. In the age of terroir, where wines are expected to exude a sense of place, some might question this approach. But ideology aside, it’s a brilliant, seductive and sumptuous wine built to last. The vinyl-lounge packaging belies the quality within – a ripe, fragrant, elegantly structured, slurpily delicious red, still in the full flush of youth at five years.

Mr Riggs Piebald Syrah 2010 $27
Adelaide, South Australia
The official Adelaide “Super zone” embraces a diversity of South Australian winemaking zones, including the Mount Lofty Ranges, Fleurie and Barossa. Drill down through the zones and the super zone contains every region north of Kangaroo Island and Victor Harbour in the south to the Clare Valley in the north. Winemaker Ben Riggs draws shiraz (syrah) from cooler sites across this diverse landscape to make Piebald – a fine-boned, spicy style of shiraz. In the excellent 2010 vintage this delivers luscious, sweet fruit, layered with fine, tender tannins – a wonderful, drink-now combination.

Port Phillip Estate Chardonnay 2011 $35
Port Phillip Estate, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Winemaker Sandro Mosele’s vintage report recounts the story of a cold, wet growing season, with summer rainfall the highest since 2003 and, ironically, the highest minimum summer temperatures in a decade fanning mildew and botrytis. Ultimately, writes Mosele, by “dropping any fruit that started to show signs of botrytis, we obtained a clean harvest”. The barrel-fermented wine combines grapefruit-like varietal flavour (and accompanying high acidity) with richer underlying white peach flavour, cut through with funky notes derived from barrel fermentation. The wine’s high acid, silky, fine texture and intense flavour suggest some benefits from short-term cellaring.

Canberra riesling — lining up the veterans

27 February 2013People, WineChris Shanahan

On Valentine’s Day, Canberra vignerons took the district’s white darling, riesling, on a date. Not a romantic, love-you, can’t-get-enough-of-you fling, but a forensic examination, under the stark spotlights inside Mount Majura’s squeaky-clean cellar.

Critics, show judges and increasing numbers of drinkers love our rieslings. But they’re enjoying mainly youthful, fresh, just-released wines, within months or maybe a year of bottling.

But it’s often said our rieslings require bottle age to soften their sometimes-austere acids and allow the underlying varietal flavours to emerge.

And it’s true that if you taste Canberra’s 2012 rieslings alongside those from the Clare Valley (a long-established specialist in the variety), our wines tend to be swept aside by Clare’s generally fruitier, softer versions.

Certainly I’ve rated Clare and some Eden Valley rieslings from this stellar vintage ahead of their Canberra counterparts – largely for this reason and in full recognition that the best Canberra wines may catch up or pull ahead in the years to come.

To some extent, then, we can only enjoy what’s before us in the glass now – not what might be there in two or ten years. But we can’t ignore riesling’s potential to blossom with age – nor the youthful austerity of Australia’s and the world’s greatest.

Germany’s great Rhine and Mosel river rieslings age in all their pristine glory for decades. They achieve this on the back of intense fruit flavour and the high acidity that makes them sometimes forbidding in youth.

Likewise Australia’s very finest rieslings tend to be slow out of the box, but to finish strongly. For example, one of Australia’s largest riesling makers, Jacob’s Creek, tends to win show medals in the year of vintage for its cheaper Classic Riesling. But the company’s flagship, generally begins hauling in the medals years after vintage.

The more established, austere but long-lived rieslings of the Clare and Eden Valleys can get away with austerity. Why? Because they have a proven capacity to age well – the best for decades.

If Canberra’s to match these wines in the market place, then our makers need to demonstrate how well the wines age – especially the driest, most acidic versions. Producers can’t expect drinkers to buy wine as an act of faith.

Hence, Canberra’s Valentine’s Day gathering looked at older Canberra rieslings – 27 wines in total, 26 dry; one sweet, the youngest five years old, the oldest 19 years.

Individual producers donated bottles from their own cellars, in Roger Harris’s case, literally displaying a life’s work.

The tasting comprised five brackets – four from individual producers, the final a mixed group. The wines weren’t masked and didn’t include any samples from other regions. So we could call it a Canberra-only benchmarking. I chaired the tasting. The format was: taste the five or six wines in each bracket in silence; call on the maker for comments about style, viticulture and winemaking; offer my own views; call for questions on comments from all tasters.

One big conclusion: the adoption of screw cap by Australian winemakers is one of the great quality breakthroughs of modern times. As the adoption began only from 1998 (and more broadly in Canberra from 2002), our tasting took in both cork- and screw-cap sealed wines. The tasting suffered only one screw-cap casualty (the maker, Roger Harris, called it his only dud bottle in eleven years), but most of the cork-sealed wines suffered, some fatally.

Makers said in some cases they opened several cork-sealed bottles to find one good one – a luxury most drinkers don’t have. Any tasting of older cork-sealed riesling, then, becomes a lottery. Indeed, the likelihood of cork damage, through taint or oxidation, prevents reliable assessment of older rieslings unless we’re dead lucky or have access to half a dozen bottles.

That caveat aside, the cork-sealed Brindabella Hills Riesling 1997 proved one of the most loveable wines of the night – maturing but still lively and fresh after 16 years.

We can also conclude Canberra doesn’t have a single riesling style. If fact, we could argue winemaker preferences probably outweigh the notion of terroir. That is, we have the right climate for riesling (arguably the biggest single factor in terroir). But, for example, winemaker preferences for complete dryness or including residual grape sweetness or picking grapes riper or less ripe strongly influence wine style.

We also observed a trend over the last 20 years to lower alcohol riesling – from a widespread realisation that riesling develops ripe flavours at comparatively low sugar levels. Alcohol levels still vary from maker to maker and from vintage to vintage – the 2012 vintage, for example, producing some of the lowest alcohol wines ever.

A couple of style differences I noted: Brindabella Hills makes soft, easy-drinking styles, a conscious decision by maker Roger Harris to suit his own palate. Clonakilla makes a richer style but with an assertive acid backbone, ameliorated in high-acid years like 2011 and 2012 by back-blending a small amount of unfermented grape juice. And Ken Helm opts for delicate, bone-dry, low-alcohol styles – his Classic slightly fuller and more approachable in youth; his Premium, minerally and austere as a youngster and probably the strongest contender in the district for an element of terroir.

Most importantly, within the individual style differences, Canberra’s best rieslings age deliciously – offering different characteristics as they age. The tasting didn’t include all of our top riesling producers. But the sample was wide enough and good enough to say Clare and Eden Valley have a challenger.

I rated many of the 27 wines very highly. In descending order of preference they were: Helm Premium 2005 and 2008, Brindabella Hills 1997, Clonakilla 2006 and 1997, Centenary Riesling 2008, Nick O’Leary 2008, Mount Majura 2008 and 2005 and Helm Premium 2006.

I rated each of these highly not just for freshness and drinkability now, but for potential to continue drinking well (with that big cork caveat hanging over the two 1997 wines, the only cork-sealed wines in the line up).

For a future masked tasting, Canberra makers should include aged rieslings, vintage for vintage, from the very best Clare and Eden Valley producers. This will help form an objective view of where we stand in relation to the acknowledged best. The best winemakers tend to build this very broad frame of reference.

Beer review — Byron Bay and Emerson’s

27 February 2013Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Byron Bay Pale Lager 330ml
The brewery is “Located in Skinners Shoot Road in Byron Bay”, declares the less-than-honest back label – omitting a crucial fact: CUB brews Pale Lager elsewhere and under licence. Don’t expect too much from the beer either. It’s a clean, fresh, fault-free quaffer with little to distinguish it from the pack.

Emerson’s London Porter 500ml $8.85
Emerson’s sits on the dark side of porter – black and brooding, its strong roasted-malt aroma reflected on a lively, malt-sweet palate that descends into an ash-dry finish and short-black coffee-like bitterness. It’s a beer for cold nights and hot food – perfect then for Canberra and Dunedin, New Zealand, where it’s made.