Chris Shanahan: Wine review — Jacob’s Creek, Cherubino Ad Hoc and Wyndham Estate

Jacob’s Creek Riesling 2012 $6.90–$12
In 2012 this wine won silver medals in the Melbourne and Hobart wine shows, then golds in Adelaide and Canberra National Wine Show. In October this year, it won the trophy as best riesling at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show. Winemaker Bernard Hickin says the fruit comes from the Barossa, Eden and Clare Valleys and Langhorne Creek. The combination gives the wine well-defined lime and lemon varietal flavours and a delicious fruit sweetness – though the wine remains crisp and dry with only about three grams a litre of residual sugar (below our taste threshold). This is an extraordinarily good wine at the price.

Cherubino Ad Hoc Middle of Everywhere
Frankland River Shiraz 2012 $19–$21
Larry Cherubino sourced fruit for this wine from various sites in Western Australia’s Frankland River region – a distinct part of the much larger Great Southern wine zone. Vines endure some of the heat pushing down from the continent, but also benefit from cool afternoon and evening air flowing up from the cold oceans to the south. The unique conditions produce generously flavoured, medium bodied red wines. In Ad Hoc we enjoy ripe, jui, blueberry-like flavours, cut with an attractive savouriness, on a soft, smooth seductive palate.

Wyndham Estate Bin 555 Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2012 $10.45–$15
Like Jacob’s Creek reviewed above, Wyndham Estate is a brand of France’s Pernod-Ricard. The company’s vast vineyard at Langhorne, established principally for the global Jacob’s Creek brand, provides the fruit for this delicious shiraz. Winemaker Steve Meyer, says he blended Bin 555 Shiraz 2012 using fruit from six different blocks on the vineyard. It shows the ripe, even, generous flavours of the vintage and the full, rich character of Langhorne Creek shiraz. This is one of Australia’s outstanding wine regions and the consumer’s friend when it makes reds of this quality at such a modest price.