Hardys Chronicles Twice Lost Langhorne Creek Pinot Grigio 2014 $16
During the nineties our major companies, and some private investors, planted broad acres of vines at Langhorne Creek to feed the wine-export boom then underway. With ample water, a warm climate, tempered by nearby Lake Alexandrina, the area produced healthy yields of high quality fruit – which, of course, is exactly what attracted investors there in the first place. Generous, soft, varietally pure red wine remains the area’s real specialty. But white wines perform well, too, albeit without the distinction, in my view, of the reds. Hardys pinot grigio delivers fresh, clean, pear like varietal flavours on a soft and refreshing palate.

Tim Smith Barossa Mataro Grenache Shiraz 2013 $24.50–$28
Former Yalumba winemaker Tim Smith struck out on his own in 2002, following a trip to France’s Rhone Valley in 2001. In his 2013 vintage three-variety Rhone-inspired blend, Smith used a smaller proportion of firm, spicy mataro (also called mourvedre) than he did in the 2012, though it remains the dominant variety at 45 per cent of the total. Floral, soft grenaches contributes 33 per cent and rich, earthy shiraz 22 per cent. It’s perhaps a tad fuller bodied than the 2012, but continues in the highly aromatic style, with rich, juicy, spicy, mid-palate fruit and assertive but smooth tannins.

Mount Horrocks Clare Valley Semillon 2013 $30
Stephanie Toole’s semillon provides the full body and texture of an oak-fermented white but unique flavours, far removed from our usual oak-fermented tipple, chardonnay. Semillon’s unique lemon- and lemongrass-like characters come through in both the aroma and flavour and give delicious vigour and life to the deep, satisfying palate. Though fermented and matured entirely in oak barrels, it’s the fruit flavour, finesse and texture that appeal most of all, meaning the oak barrels did their job without intruding. O’Toole makes her wines from 10-hectares of vines in the Clare Valley. Her semillon comes from the Watervale sub-region at the southern end of the valley.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 11 October 2014 in goodfood.com.au and 12 October 2014 in the Canberra Times

Lark Hill Gruner Veltliner 2014 $45
Lark Hill Vineyard, Lake George Escarpment, Canberra District, NSW
Even in the difficult 2014 season, Austrian variety gruner veltliner made an outstanding wine at Canberra’s highest vineyard. The Carpenter family call 2014 “one of the most challenging vintages to date”. Frost and unsettled spring weather disrupted flowering, reducing the crop. But what remained of the gruner veltliner, say the Carpenters, successfully weathered the hottest, driest summer and wettest autumn on record. Spontaneously fermented in older oak barrels, the wine offers aromas of spice and melon and a richly textured palate with unique flavours reminiscent of spice, herbs and melon rind. Steely acidity accentuates the flavours, gives a long finish and suggests a medium to long cellaring life.

Serafino Sorrento Shiraz 2013$18–$20
McLaren Vale, South Australia
Steve Maglieri’s mid-priced shiraz looked good at a recent tasting alongside several more expensive wines, including the remarkable d’Arenberg Dead Arm McLaren Vale Shiraz 2010 ($65). Not surprisingly, tasters preferred the powerful d’Arenberg wine. But for less than a third of the price, Serafino gives the more-ish, ripe and earthy flavours and soft, savoury tannins of McLaren Vale shiraz.

Madfish Premium White 2013$13.30–$18
Great Southern and Margaret River, Western Australia
Behind the vague “premium white” name lurks a decent dry white, made mainly from chardonnay grown in very good Western Australia’s vineyard regions. The wine shows the bright, fresh, citrus-like flavours of chardonnay fermented in stainless steel, rather than oak barrels. Although semillon comprises just four per cent of the blend, its presence shows in the aroma and, to a lesser extent, in the zesty, smooth-textured palate. Madfish is the budget brand of the Burch family’s Howard Park Wines.

Freeman Nebbiolo 2012 $35
Freeman Altura vineyard, Hilltops, NSW
In 2012, Brian Freeman coaxed something wonderful out of Piedmont’s noble and notoriously difficult red variety, nebbiolo. He writes, “Five years ago we decided to graft nebbiolo onto dry-grown 40-year-old pinot noir vines, effectively tapping into amazing vine maturity. Subsequently, the ideal 2012 season produced low yields of fully ripe nebbiolo grapes with exceptional flavour and balance”. The wine shows nebbiolo’s typically pale colour, floral- and -savoury aroma and taut, firmly tannic, medium bodied palate. Delicious, ripe fruit flavours push teasingly through those tannins ahead of the firm, savoury, lingering finish. This is an elegant, distinctive red well removed in style from Australia’s generally fleshy styles.

Mount Majura Vineyard Shiraz 2013 $32
Mount Majura vineyard, Canberra District, ACT
In a recent masked tasting of 2013-vintage Canberra shirazes, Mount Majura was one of the deepest coloured, fullest bodied and, at 15 per cent, probably one of the most alcoholic of 21 wines. In that fairly rushed tasting I ranked it about bronze medal standard, with the caveat that wines of this dimension require bottle age. A week later judges at the local show perhaps felt the same when they awarded it a bronze medal. However, a more leisurely tasting, with the bottle open for a few days, revealed a big but harmonious wine with great depth of bright, spicy fruit flavour and silky tannins. Based on that tasting, I’m shifting up to a silver medal score and suspect the wine will distinguish itself after more bottle age.

Hardys The Chronicles Butcher’s Gold Shiraz 2012 $15.99
McLaren Vale, South Australia
Hardys is now part of Accolade Wines, controlled by Champ Private Equity, and headquartered at Reynella, South Australia, home of the former Hardy Wine Company. Reynella is next door to McLaren, where Thomas Hardy founded Hardys in 1853. That the winemakers know a little about McLaren Vale shiraz shows in this delicious new Butcher’s Gold release. It’s a rich, full red wine, built on ripe, earthy shiraz flavours with the savouriness and soft but pervasive tannins we expect of the region.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 7 October 2014 in goodfood.com.au and 8 October 2014 in the Canberra Times

Hardys Chronicles “The Gamble” Limestone Coast Chardonnay 2014 $15.99
The press release sketches a tenuous connection between Hardys “The Chronicles” range and the company’s nineteenth-century founder Thomas Hardy. In fact, this is a thoroughly modern, realistically priced wine, made by people who also make one of Australia’s finest chardonnays, Eileen Hardy. Grapes are sourced from South Australia’s vast Limestone Coast (all of the state south of the Murray and immediately west of the Victorian border). The result is a bright and fresh wine of rich but fine texture, built on the region’s melon-like varietal flavours. Presumably Padthaway fruit contributes much to the flavour. This area was also source of fruit for the early Eileen Hardy chardonnays.

Hardys Chronicles “Seventh Green” Langhorne Creek–Coonawarra
Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 2014 $15.99
Hardys new Seventh Green neatly combines the characteristics of cabernet sauvignon from Langhorne Creek (near Lake Alexandrina) and Coonawarra, a couple of hours’ drive to the south on the Limestone Coast. Both regions produce cabernet of outstanding varietal definition: Langhorne Creek in a slightly fuller, fleshier style; Coonawarra in a more concentrated, firm and elegant style. The combination produces a modestly priced cabernet of striking varietal definition, both in its blackcurrant and slightly leafy character and fine, firm backbone of tannin. With wider distribution the price may be subject to discounting.

Soumah Single Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2013 $29–$31
Soumah, from Gruyere, Yarra Valley, makes its pinot noir from three different clones of the variety. Soumah’s Brett Butcher writes, “the traditional MV6 clone gives minerality and a broad fruit profile while the Pommard adds good structure and elegance. The 777 then brings a dollop of well-rounded, juicy raspberry and cherry flavours with a bright dose of fine acid”. What the drinker beholds is an elegant pinot, built on vibrant red-berry varietal flavours, fresh acidity, smooth texture and fine tannins, derived both from the fruit and oak casks.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published 4 October 2014 in canberratimes.com.au
and 5 October 2014 in the Sunday Canberra Times

John Duval Wines Entity Shiraz 2012 $40.85–$50
Krondorf, Greenock and Eden Valley, Barossa, South Australia
Former Grange makers John Duval sources fruit for Entity from the Krondorf and Greenock sub-regions of the Barossa Valley and a portion from the elevated, cooler Eden Valley to the east. The combination yields a vibrant shiraz in the generous, sweet-fruited Barossa style, but with an elegant structure and drink-now appeal. The supple, juicy fruit flavours incorporate the spice, savouriness and fine structural tannins of high quality fine-grained French oak. Entity provides extraordinarily satisfying drinking now. But the sheer freshness of the fruit and solid underlying tannin structure suggest a long and lovely evolution with bottle age.

Red Knot by Shingleback Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 $11.39–$15
McLaren Vale, South Australia
Red Knot Cabernet Sauvignon, from the Davey family’s Shingleback vineyard, McLaren Vale, evokes words like ripe, juicy, fruity, varietal and soft – a bright, fresh, flavoursome, lovable, red made to enjoy now. But it’s a bit more than that, too – a great example of the sophistication of modern Australian winemaking. Why? Despite the low price it’s not propped up by over-extraction, over oaking or over-ripeness as we used to see. It’s a graceful, lovely, modestly priced wine, based on fruit quality not winemaking tricks.

Andrew Thomas Six Degrees Semillon 2014 $23
Hunter Valley, New South Wales
Hunter Valley semillon’s a logical candidate for low-alcohol winemaking. The dry versions deliver ripe flavours but often register at around 10–11 per cent alcohol, considerably below the 12–14 per cent we normally see in Australian whites. Arresting the fermentation before the yeasts gobble up all the grape sugar produces wines of even lower alcohol content. In Six Degrees, Andrew Thomas achieves just 8.7 per cent alcohol while leaving a fairly high level of unfermented grape sugar. However, the high acidity of the early-picked grapes offsets the sweetness by injecting young semillon’s typical lemony tartness. It’s a delicious combination.

Ulithorne Corsus Vermentinu 2013 $34
Corsica, France
McLaren Vale based Ulithorne makes and imports this wine from the French Island of Corsica. Vermentinu, known in Australia as vermentino, has grown in the vicinity, notably in Sardinia and Liguria, for many centuries. Winemaker Rose Kentish’s version presents a more herbal, spicy and savoury version of the variety than Australian efforts to date. It offers a fine but chewy texture, exotic herbal flavours and bone-dry, refreshing finish.

Mount Majura Riesling 2014 $27
Mount Majura vineyard, Canberra District, ACT
Mount Majura 2014 riesling follows broadly in the style of other Canberra 2014s tasted to date. The first impression of aromatic and delicious, full-throttle varietal flavour changes a little as the wine’s high acidity becomes apparent. The acidity makes the palate refreshing and works very well with food. But unaccompanied by food, the wine’s acidity tends to be a little austere, even though winemaker Frank van de Loo left a little residual grape sugar behind to temper the acidity. A few more months in bottle should amplify the fruit flavour, further offsetting the acidity.

Lark Hill Biodynamic Shiraz Viognier 2013 $30
Lark Hill Dark Horse vineyard, Murrumbateman, Canberra District, NSW
In mid September, the Canberra District Vignerons Association held a tasting of Canberra shirazes, split into four groupings: 2013 vintage, 2009 vintage, 2005 vintage, and a mixed class from 2000, 1998, 1996, 1994 1992 and 1990. With only a few exceptions, 21 wines from 2013 confirmed the exceptional quality of this vintage. Many wines, including Lark Hill, showed the superior fruit quality and ripe, velvety tannins of the benign season. Lark Hill combines bright red-berry fruit with typical Canberra spice and a touch of pepper. A small portion of viognier in the blend adds to the richness and texture of the palate. The wine is young and unevolved at present but we can expect it to blossom with a little bottle age.

Copyright © Chris Shanahan 2014
First published:
30 September 2014 at goodfood.com.au
1 October 2014 in the Canberra Times