Category Archives: Wine review

Penfolds 2013 Bin releases – 2010, 2011 and 2012 vintages

10 April 2013Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Penfolds 2013 release of its much-loved “Bin” wines includes two whites from the outstanding 2012 vintage and nine reds from the 2010, 2011 and 2012 vintages. The reds remain the most traded of any in the country and are the foundation of many Australian cellars. And the whites, though they live in the shadow of the reds, mix it with the best of their styles.

The retail prices of both vary considerably as eager discounting trims the prices considerably, as demonstrated in the price ranges given with each wine. These are simply the recommended price and the lowest price I could find as I wrote, just before Easter. The prices can and do change weekly, so it pays to Google around.

The Bin 51 riesling and Bin 311 show the extra flavour depth of a great white vintage. And they show the polish of a company committed to all the fine detail in the vineyard and winery. You can’t go wrong with these, provided, of course, that you like the styles.

The reds can be split into long-cellaring and early drinking styles (noted in the reviews) and can also be separated by vintage. The lone 2012 wine, Bin 23 pinot noir, gives a unique Penfolds take on this classic variety in a very good year.

The 2011s all show the effects of the cold, wet 2011 vintage, but they succeed nevertheless, albeit with a caveat on the Bin 138. But they’ll never reach the heights of the brilliant 2010s – all exceptional wines.

I make no comment on the investment potential of the wines, other than to direct readers to the price guide on langtons.com.au for the latest price realisations on past vintages.

It’s safer to simply buy the wines for drinking pleasure, knowing that the good vintages have an outstanding cellaring record.

Penfolds Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling 2012 $23.75–$29.99
Sourced from the High Eden and Woodbury vineyards in the Eden Valley, Bin 51 shows the class of the 2012 riesling vintage. It offers riesling’s delicacy. The aroma shows floral, citrus and apple-like varietal character. And all of these show on the delicate but intensely flavoured palate. Although the sweet fruit softens the palate, the season’s brisk acidity gives the wine real backbone and a clean, refreshing finish. It drinks well now but should age well for many years if cellared in the right conditions.

Penfolds Bin 311 Tumbarumba Chardonnay 2012 $31.90–$39.99
Like the three chardonnays reviewed in Quaffers today, Bin 311 is a sophisticated, barrel-fermented style, focusing on fruit flavour. Penfolds came to Tumbarumba through its sister company Seppelt, which went there initially in search of chardonnay and pinot noir for sparkling wine. However, the cool region’s chardonnay proved excellent for table wine, too. The latest vintage lies at the subtler end of the chardonnay spectrum. It’s pale coloured and combines high acidity with varietal flavour reminiscent of a blend of fig, nectarine and grapefruit – a wine of considerable finesse to enjoy over the next five or six years.

Penfolds Bin 23 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2012 $32.29–$39.99
Bin 23 sits squarely in the Penfolds’ rich, solid mould. But it also captures the unique character of pinot noir, albeit at the bigger end of the spectrum. The ripe, varietal aroma comes liberally anointed with savoury and earthy notes – characters that come through on the juicy, multi-layered, firmly tannic palate. This is high quality pinot in a distinctive style and probably capable of ageing very well in the medium term.

Penfolds Bin 138 Barossa Valley Shiraz Grenache Mataro 2011 $27.90–$37.99
For an old company with such deep Barossa roots and a long history of multi-region blending, Penfolds came late to producing straight Barossa reds on a regular basis. But it now offers several, including the sub-regional Bin 150 (below) and Bin 138. In the cool, wet 2011 vintage, shiraz dominates the Bin 138 blend, grenache provides aromatic high notes and bright fruitiness to the palate and mataro adds spice and structure. The three combine into a big, earthy red with firm, chunky tannins; but a little too much so for my taste. One of the rare Penfolds reds I don’t enjoy drinking.

Penfolds Bin 2 South Australia Shiraz Mourvedre 2011 $34.19–$37.99
Bin 2 has been an on-again, off-again wine for Penfolds, made initially in 1960. Originally marketed as shiraz mataro, Bin 2 adopts the French name “mourvedre” for the latest release. Confusingly, Bin 138 (above) made the change from “mourvedre” to “mataro”, leaving Penfolds with a bet on both names. Sourced from the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale, the medium-bodied Bin 2 2011 offers a combo of ripe berries, spice and savouriness on a supple, soft palate.

Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2011 $27.90–$37.99
Bin 128 succeeds in the difficult 2011 season. It’s a tad lighter bodied than normal, but that comes hand in hand with the lovely, sweet perfume of cool-grown shiraz. This carries over to a lively, elegant palate, cut through with fine tannins and a sympathetic spiciness from the French oak. Drinks well now and should evolve for five or six years.

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2010 $27.55–$37.99
Bin 28 combines shiraz from the war Barossa Valley, McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek and the slightly cooler Wrattonbully and Robe on the Limestone Coast. Clearly it’s an excellent year, though I sense also a tweak to the Bin 28 style, too, principally in the brightness and freshness of fruit aroma and flavour and less obvious oak. The colour’s deep red-black and the aroma combines bright, ripe-cherry varietal character, seasoned with spice. The plump, ripe palate reflects the aroma and it’s layered with ripe, assertive-but-soft fruit tannins. This is an outstanding Bin 28 with good cellaring potential.

Penfolds Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz 2010 $59.75–$74.99
The Barossa Valley’s Marananga sub-region produces outstanding red wine and has long been favoured by Penfolds. Not surprisingly their first sub-regional label, Bin 150, came from this area. The fruit has the power to handle maturation in 50 per cent new oak (a mix of French and American). The lively, deep, sweet-spicy fruit absorbs the oak and has a special buoyancy and depth. It’s a very special expression of Barossa shiraz and probably capable of long-term cellaring, though it hasn’t been around long enough to say that with certainty.

Penfolds Bin 8 South Australia Cabernet Shiraz 2011 $29.90–$37.99
Winemaker Peter Gago says he made this early drinking blend (62per cent cabernet, the rest shiraz) in response to international media interest in the traditional Australia blend of cabernet and shiraz. He sources fruit from McLaren Vale, Barossa Valley and Upper Adelaide, all warm regions. The wine captures fruit aromatics and vibrant fruit flavours, with sufficient tannin to provide red wine structure, as you’d expect from Penfolds. Berry and leafy cabernet characters dominate the flavour and shiraz fattens out the mid palate. An early drinking style.

Penfolds Bin 389 South Australia Cabernet Shiraz 2010 $55.45–$74.99
The finessing of the Penfolds style apparent in the Bin 28 shows, too, in a particularly lively Bin 389 – a true multi-regional blend (51 per cent cabernet, the rest shiraz) from Barossa Valley, Coonawarra, Wrattonbully, Robe, McLaren Vale, Padthaway and the Adelaide Hills. The cabernet component generally dominates Bin 389, but in 2010 the two become inseparable. Instead we smell and taste a juicy, supple red with an attractive spicy-sweet character from the oak weaving through the fruit. Cabernet finally asserts itself in the firm but finely textured finish. What a classy wine – and built long cellaring. The oak is all American, 40 per cent of it new.

Penfolds Bin 407 South Australia Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $55.55–$74.99
Bin 407 provides an expression of ripe, but not overripe, cabernet sauvignon – blackcurrant-like with no discernible leafy or herbal characters. To achieve this, winemaker Peter Gago selects suitable fruit from Coonawarra, Wrattonbully and Padthway on the Limestone Coast and McLaren Vale, a few hundred kilometres to the north. The oak used for maturation comprises French and American barrels of various ages, a little under half it new. Impressively vibrant, dense, pure-varietal fruit fills the palate, cut with ripe, fine-textured tannins. This is an exceptionally complete, well balance cabernet with long cellaring potential.

Wine review — Yering Station, Kate Hill, Finca Rosal, Galli Estate and Howard Park

10 April 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Yering Station Village Pinot Noir 2011 $21–$25
Yarra Valley, Victoria
The Rathbone family produces several pinots from its Yarra Valley vineyards. And as we see often in the wine industry, a company achieving superior quality in its top-shelf wines generally leads the pack in lower priced wine as well. Yering Station’s entry-level Village pinot delivers the thrill of the variety at a fair price. The wine’s pale colour belies its depth of mouth-watering “pinosity” – a combination of detailed varietal flavour, fine supporting tannins and silky texture.

Kate Hill Cabernet Merlot 2010 $24–$30
Coal River and Tamar Valleys, Tasmania
At a recent tasting, Kate Hill’s wine sat beside a comparable blend from Bordeaux sub-region, Puisseguin-Saint Emillion. I’d hoped for contrast but also some similarities. Contrast we got; similarities zero. Kate Hill’s vivacious cabernet merlot blend thrilled with its musky perfume and lively palate – based on ripe berry flavours, seasoned with the pleasing leafiness these varieties deliver in cool climates. Fine, soft tannins added to the wine’s drink now charm. It’s an uncomplicated, delicious expression of the cool climate and the two varieties. The French wine, on the other hand, proved a poor representative from a region capable of making charming, elegant reds.

Finca Rosal Old Vines Monastrell 2010 $20
Yecla, Murcia, Spain
Thanks to the strong Australian dollar we can enjoy this bright, fresh Spanish wine at a realistic price. It’s made from monastrell, a Spanish red variety known in Australia since the 1830s as mataro and more recently by its French name, mourvedre. The wine is made in the clean, bright, modern style. It’s limpid and vibrantly coloured, featuring sweet, blueberry-like fruit flavours, with earthy and spicy notes, layered with soft, drying tannins.

Yering Station Village Chardonnay 2011 $21–$25
Yarra Valley, Victoria
The three beautiful chardonnays reviewed today present shades of the contemporary Australian oak-fermented style. In body, Yering Station sits between the fuller Howard Park wine and the more delicate Galli Estate version. Yering Station (80 per cent barrel fermented) leads with vibrant, citrus and nectarine-like varietal flavour. A subtle funky note and smooth texture (from partial wild-yeast fermentation and maturation in yeast lees) season the fruit with detracting from its vitality.

Galli Estate Camelback Chardonnay 2012 $17–$20
Sunbury, Victoria
Galli Estate, the lightest and leanest of the three chardonnays reviewed today, captures the racy, grapefruit-like, just-ripe flavour of cool-grown chardonnay. Although the entire blend was fermented in oak barrels, and 80 per cent of it kept there for maturation on yeast lees, the oak is barely, if at all, detectable. Its use will have added to the texture of the wine, but for the drinker this is all about fine fruit flavour, intensified by brisk acidity.

Howard Park Miamup Chardonnay 2011 $23–$27
Southern Margaret River, Western Australia
Howard Park Miamup chardonnay offers a bolder expression of chardonnay than we see in the two expressions reviewed today. The fuller, rounder stone-fruit-like flavour comes bundled with assertive funky notes (injected by the winemaking techniques) and oak flavours. It’s not a return to the fat, oak chardonnays of the past but a bright, fresh, modern approach that’s not afraid to let the winemaking inputs stand equally with the fruit. If you were enjoying a chardonnay dinner, you might begin with Galli Estate and oysters, move on to garfish and Yering Station – and finish on lobster and Howard Park.

Wine review — Peter Lehmann, Quilty and Toppers Mountain

7 April 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Peter Lehmann H and V Adelaide Hills Pinot Gris 2012 $22
Minor mutations of the pinot vine explain how we can enjoy white (pinot blanc), pink-grey (pinot gris) and red (pinot noir) wine from a single vine variety. All three deliver their best flavours in cool climates. For Peter Barossa-based Lehmann wines, that means sourcing fruit from a couple of cooler, high-altitude vineyards in the Adelaide Hills. Though there’s none of the pink-grey colour we often see in pinot gris, the wine shows the variety’s silky texture, enhanced by fermentation of a portion in oak barrels. The flavour is delicate – a little like fresh pear – leaving the focus on texture and racy freshness.

Quilty Silken Thread Mudgee Petit Verdot 2011 $22
The late-ripening Bordeaux variety petit verdot gives colour and complexity to blends with cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and merlot. However, recent genetic research, writes Jancis Robinson, puts it in a separate vine family, including little known varieties, ardonnet, gros verdot and petit verdot faux. Like the Bordelaise, Australian wine makers tend to blend petit verdot away. But Des Quilty and others let petit verdot standalone. At a recent tasting of lesser-known varieties, Quilty’s version appealed to a range of first-time petit verdot tasters. Not as deep as some I’ve tasted, perhaps because of the cool vintage, it delivered ripe, juicy flavour on a pleasingly elegant palate.

Toppers Mountain New England Gewurztraminer 2012 $35
In Wine Grapes: A complete guide to 1368 vine varieties, including their origins and flavours, Jancis Robinson describes gewürztraminer as “one of the most headily and distinctively aromatic varietals of all with strong lychee flavours and high alcohol levels”. She says the latest genetic research classifies the variety as “an aromatic mutation of savagnin rose” that probably occurred in Germany’s Rheingau region. Toppers Mountain’s version, from the cool New England region, NSW, resembles more the plush, highly aromatic, almost viscous versions from Alsace, France. A little bit goes a long way. But I can imagine this with pork sausage, pate, or, alternatively, with the spicy tang of Thai food.

Wine review — Printhie, Brokenwood, Xanadu and Kate Hill

3 April 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Printhie MCC Shiraz 2011 $36
Printhie Phalaris vineyard, Orange, NSW
Some time back, vignerons in Orange, NSW, nominated sauvignon blanc as their hero variety. But Printhie’s Dave Swift puts shiraz and chardonnay at the top of the regional pile. He writes, “These are the varieties that are proving to be the region’s best performers”. Shiraz performs best in Printhie’s lower (620 metres), warmer sites while chardonnay shines at a significantly cooler 900 metres. The two wines reviewed today support Swift’s claim brilliantly. Either could’ve been wine of the week. The deeply coloured shiraz offers the intense spice and pepper, medium body and fine tannins typical of cool-grown shiraz. It holds a couple of trophies and gold medals, including one from the very competitive Royal Sydney Wine Show 2013.

Printhie MCC Chardonnay 2011 $36
Orange, NSW
Every now and then Orange throws up an elegant chardonnay of great purity and beauty. I recall several under Murray Smith’s Canobolas Smith label, and an absolutely beautiful Rosemount Estate 1994, made by Philip Shaw, a wine that went on winning show medals for many years. Printhie’s 2011, made by Drew Tuckwell, joins this elite group. It no doubt enjoyed all the tricks winemakers throw at chardonnay. But an intense citrus- melon-like varietal character remains at the centre, completely subsuming the winemaker inputs into the rich texture and complex flavours. This is a classy chardonnay and probably good for five or six years in the cellar.

Brokenwood Semillon 2012 $25
Lower Hunter (Pokolbin and Broke-Fordwich) and Upper Hunter, NSW
Brokenwood’s new release semillon draws fruit from its home base in Pokolbin, the adjoining Broke valley and vineyards further up the Hunter Valley. It weighs in at just 10.5 per cent alcohol, contains an undetectable 4.8 grams per litre of residual grape sugar and acidity of 6.9 grams a litre. That combination gives a light, gentle, crisp, dry white featuring the distinctive citrus and lemongrass-like aromas and flavours of early picked semillon. It’s a delicate, aperitif style with the ability to develop rich, honeyed flavours with bottle age.

Xanadu Next of Kin Shiraz 2011 $18
Margaret River, Western Australia
Xanadu is the Margaret River arm of the Rathbone Group, comprising, as well, Yering Station (Yarra Valley), Mount Langi Ghiran (Grampians) and Parker Estate (Coonawarra). Xanadu’s Next of Kin range offers really good, drink-now regional wines at prices well below the premium offerings. The shiraz, though 14.5 per cent alcohol, seems more medium than full-bodied. Vibrant berry flavours drive the wine, but these are satisfying layered with spicy and savoury notes and soft, easy tannins.

Kate Hill Riesling 2012 $28
Tasmania
Kate Hill sources fruit from growers in Tasmania’s Derwent, Coal River and Huon Valleys and makes wine in her Huonville winery, a converted 100-year-old apple cool store. Her delicate, dry riesling (11.8 per cent alcohol) is far removed in style from the ones we know from warm mainland sites like Clare Valley, Eden Valley and Canberra. It’s more akin to the German style in flavour, though somewhat fuller and firmer. This and a few others I’ve tasted make it easy to imagine Tasmania as Australia’s riesling capital in the years ahead.

Kate Hill Pinot Noir 2010 $36
Coal River Valley and Derwent Valley, Tasmania
Australia’s pinot scene grows more exciting and varied every day, with Tasmania steadily moving from potential to achievement. Kate Hill’s sits in the latter category ¬¬– a richly textured, medium-bodied style of modest alcohol (13 per cent). It features ripe, cherry-like varietal character, a subtle, stalky note and a finely structured palate with quite firm tannins. We see this positive character quite often in Burgundy but not so much in Australia’s generally softer styles. This is a brand to watch. Hill says she’ll be planting one to two hectares of pinot noir this spring and opening a cellar door in 2014. See katehillwines.com.au for stockists.

Wine review — Bibliotheque, Mr Riggs and Houghton

31 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Bibliotheque Classical Literature McLaren Vale Grenache Shiraz 2011 $16
Sydney-based wine wholesaler Single Vineyard Sellers supplements its range of small-maker offerings with its own labels – “Highgate” for the on-premise trade and “Bibliotheque” for retailers. Smart independent retailers see a competitive advantage in Bibliotheque as they know the big boys don’t stock it and therefore can’t undercut them. The Classical Literature blend from McLaren offers attractive, easy drinking at a fair price. It’s a medium bodied, drink-now red, led by the fragrance and soft fruitiness of grenache, with the mid palate filled out by spicy, savoury shiraz.

Mr Riggs Montepulciano d’Adelaide Hills 2011 $27
Italy’s montepulciano grape (unrelated to the Tuscan town of the same name) is best known in the Abruzzi region, on the Adriatic coast. In the rolling hills leading up to the Apennines, it produces, at its best, dark, ripe, full-bodied, tannic, savoury reds. Leading producers, like Dino Illuminati (imported by Woolworths), bring out the best in the variety. Winemaker Ben Riggs sources his grapes from a warm site between Kersbrook and Williamstown in the Adelaide Hills. In the cold, wet 2011 vintage, Mr Riggs seems a little skinnier than usual, the delicious fruit fighting to push through the earthy, savouriness and firm tannins.

Houghton Western Australia Red Classic Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2011 $10
Houghton’s popular, keenly priced red earned a gold medal in the 2012 National Wine Show of Australia. The makers entered it in the classes for commercial, large-volume wines – meaning it didn’t need an award from another show to qualify for entry. The wine’s floral and musky fragrance gives it instant appeal – an appeal backed by the bright, fruity palate. Fresh acidity and fine tannins give life and structure to the medium-bodied palate. It’ll never be better to drink than it is right now. Houghton, an old Western Australian brand, is now part of Accolade Wines, formerly Constellation Wines Australia and before that BRL Hardy.

Wine review — Schloss Vollrads, Shaw and Smith, Red Knot, Petaluma, Canard-Duchene and Gaelic Cemetery

27 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Schloss Vollrads Auslese Riesling 2009 $38–$40 375ml
Oestrich-Winkel, Rheingau, Germany
It’s three and a half years old, but young, fresh, vibrant and almost certainly good for another ten years. But why wait? At a recent masked tasting we honed in on the style and origin of the wine with ease, so clear is its identity. The pale lemon colour, low alcohol (7.5 per cent), delicate perfume and sharply detailed fruit flavour appealed from the first sip – its fairly high sugar content is in complete harmony with the fruit and fine, intense backbone of acidity. This is a fine Rhein River specialty at a fair price. It’s imported by Woolworths-owned Dan Murphy’s.

Shaw and Smith Shiraz 2010 $37–$45
Adelaide Hills, South Australia
At the recent Winewise Championship I was very much taken by Shaw and Smith’s 2009 Shiraz. However, I rate the 2010 a notch higher. It sits at the more powerful end of the house style. It’s medium bodied and elegantly structured, as you’d expect in the cool growing climate; but the deep, intense-crimson colour, opulent, seductive aroma and palate-saturating fruit flavours, cut with very good oak, probably outweigh any they’ve made in the past. Winemakers Martin Shaw and Darryl Catlin say the fruit comes from “low yielding vines at Balhannah, the central Adelaide Hills, and Macclesfield, the warmer and drier sub-region to the south”.

Red Knot by Shingleback Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2012 $10.40–$15
McLaren Vale, South Australia
The Davey family’s Red Knot range delivers some of the best value for money drinking in the market. Red drinkers twigged to this a few years back, and retailers responded by including the wines among their regular discounts. The wines easily deserve $15 a bottle. But they’re bargains when the price drops closer to $10 – as they were when I wrote this review. The 2012 blend leads with the lovely musk-like fragrance of grenache, supported on the soft and juicy palate by the richness of shiraz and spiciness of mourvedre.

Petaluma White Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 $22–$24
Coonawarra, South Australia
Petaluma’s new white label cabernet provides aromatic, soft, drink-now pleasure. It’s an elegant style, built on Coonawarra’s unique ripe-berry flavours, backed by a pleasant, dusty/woody sweetness, derived from maturation in French oak barrels.

Canard-Duchene Brut Rose Champagne $80
Champagne, France
Canard-Duchene was founded in 1868 by Victor Canard and Leonie Duchene. It was associated for a time with the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy Group before being acquired by the Thienot group in 2003. I enjoyed the wines on a number of occasions in the early 1980s but hadn’t seen it since until its distributor, Red and White, provided bottles for review. The house style tends to be generous and fruity but very delicate. In the rose – a blend of pinot noir (45 per cent, 10 per cent of it red wine), pinot meunier (30 per cent) and chardonnay (25 per cent) – sweet, aromatic strawberry/raspberry flavours from the two pinots dominate a round, soft, delicately off-dry palate.

Gaelic Cemetery Vineyard Reserve Riesling 2012 $35
Gaelic Cemetery vineyard, Clare Valley, South Australia
The more floral rieslings don’t do it with oysters for me. The tangy, briny aftertaste tends to overwhelm the delicate fruitiness of these wines. On the other hand, steely, firm, minerally, bone-dry whites can accentuate oyster flavours. Neil Pike’s intense, steely riesling fits that description and combined deliciously with fresh-shucked Narooma oysters. Pike makes the wine from fruit grown on Grant Arnold’s Gaelic Cemetery vineyard. It’s a complete contrast to the softer, more floral version reviewed last week. Pike explains the extra backbone in the reserve version, saying it was “handpicked, whole bunch pressed and fermented with partial solids”.

Wine review — Petaluma and Red Knot

24 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Petaluma White Label Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2011 $20–$22
For about half the price of the regular Petaluma chardonnay, white label delivers the vitality and intense nectarine and grapefruit-like varietal flavours of a cold Adelaide Hills vintage. Where the regular blend carries the patina of flavours and texture associated with barrel fermentation and maturation (a serious wine, so to speak), white label delivers the razzle-dazzle of early-picked grapes, captured through fermentation in stainless steel. But barrel fermentation of a portion of the blend adds subtly to the wine’s texture without taking the focus away from the fruit. This is a delicious drink-now style.

Red Knot McLaren Vale Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2012 $10.40–$15
The Davey family’s Red Knot range delivers some of the best value for money drinking in the market. Red drinkers twigged to this a few years back, and retailers responded by including the wines among their regular discounts. The wines easily deserve $15 a bottle. But they’re bargains when the price drops closer to $10 – as they were when I wrote this review. The 2012 blend leads with the lovely musk-like fragrance of grenache, supported on the soft and juicy palate by the richness of shiraz and spiciness of mourvedre.

Red Knot McLaren Vale Chardonnay 2012 $14.95
Like every other wine region, McLaren Vale climbed on board the chardonnay bandwagon in the 1980s. While makers of the finest quality chardonnays moved further south or to higher elevations seeking cooler climates, McLaren Vale did the best it could with the variety. Over time the style shifted from rich, buttery oaky styles to the far more refined versions we see today. Red Knot is a good and well priced example of the modern McLaren Vale style – bright and fresh, with generous melon and peach varietal flavour, but modestly alcoholic at 12.5 per cent and with oak way off in the background, a gentle seasoning.

Wine review — Gaelic Cemetary, Brand’s Laira, Montalto, Richmond Grove and Cumulus

20 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Gaelic Cemetery Vineyard Riesling 2012 $20
Gaelic Cemetery Vineyard, Clare Valley, South Australia
Well-known Clare Valley winemaker Neil Pike makes two rieslings from Grant Arnold’s Gaelic Cemetery Vineyard, five kilometres north of Clare township. The first reviewed, today is made in a fresh, fruity style for current drinking; the second, for review next week, treads a different path. For $20, the fruity style delivers mouth-watering lime and lemon freshness. It’s soft, round, juicy and seductive but dry and cut through with zesty acidity. This is a style to enjoy over the next three or four years, but never better than now.

Brand’s Laira Tall Vines Shiraz 2010 $22–$27
Brand’s vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
At the recent Winewise Championship, Tall vines scraped in one point behind Wolf Blass McLaren Vale Shiraz 2010 ($34). They were my top two wines in a group of seven, all gold medal winners from Australian wine shows. I rated the Blass wine slightly ahead of Brand’s, though the price difference makes Brand’s really good value. At just under 15 per cent alcohol, it’s big for a Coonawarra shiraz. But it retains the region’s ripe, distinctive berry flavours – in the 2010 vintage coated with quite firm, satisfying tannins. Though attractive, I believe the style could do with fine-tuning to express the finer face of Coonawarra shiraz.

Brand’s Laira Stentiford’s Shiraz 2008$55
Brand’s Stentiford vineyard, Coonawarra, South Australia
I had a dream. Nick O’Leary and Alex McKay appeared in Brand’s Stentiford vineyard (planted 1893) just weeks before vintage. They harvested grapes a little earlier than usual, capturing their extraordinary, intense, bright berry flavours. They included whole bunches in the ferments, hand-plunged the cap of skins and held back on the new oak (all French of course) as the wine matured. The razor-edged varietality of the bright, elegant, silky, medium-bodied wine they made amazed everybody. Robert Parker and James Halliday rated it 100/100. Then I woke to the real, more burly Stentiford – its oaky, 15 per-cent alcohol, furry tannins blurring the fruit within. Yes, it’s a gold-medal wine to some judges, silver to me. But where’s the finesse and shimmering beauty glimpsed occasionally from this great vineyard?

Montalto Pennon Hill Chardonnay 2012 $23–$25
Pennon and Hawkins Hill vineyards, Mornington Peninsula, Victoria
Montalto rates among the best producers on the Mornington Peninsula, their second label, Pennon Hill, delivering regional style and quality at a fair price. The 2012 chardonnay impresses for its lovely underlying varietal flavour, reminiscent of melon rind, tweaked with grapefruit. But barrel fermentation with indigenous yeast, a natural malolactic fermentation (a secondary fermentation converting malic acid to lactic acid) and maturation on spent yeast cells all add to the rich, but fine, texture of the wine and patina of subtle flavours coating the underlying fruit.

Richmond Grove Riesling 2012 $19–$22
Watervale, Southern Clare Valley, South Australia
Richmond Grove is riesling royalty – combining the long, distinguished pedigrees of Leo Buring-Lindemans and Orlando. The two streams combined in the nineties and included riesling luminaries Bernard Hickin (Orlando) and John Vickery and Phil Laffer (Buring-Lindeman). Today Rebekah Richardson makes the rieslings under Hickin, continuing the delicate, brisk, dry style, with its distinctive lime-like flavour and potential to age well for many years. I rate this the best vintage since the outstanding and still delicious 2002.

Cumulus Shiraz 2010 $35
Orange, NSW
Cumulus comes from a 508-hectare estate belonging principally to Portugal’s Berardo family, owners, too, of several Portuguese estates. Cumulus 2009 shiraz, reviewed a year ago, showed more classic, fine-boned, cool-climate style. But the 2010 seems notably fuller in style, with stronger firmer tannins – albeit silky, smooth and easy to drink. Winemaker Debbie Lauritz says, “We included 10% whole bunches in the press for the 2010, giving the tannins a savoury twist and increasing the texture”.

Wine review — Nick O’Leary, Peter Lehmann and Mr Riggs

17 March 2013Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Nick O’Leary Canberra District Shiraz 2011 $28
Local winemaker Nick O’Leary’s 2011 shiraz impressed when he released it last year. Then in a masked tasting a few weeks back it vied for top spot among tasters alongside O’Leary’s new flagship red, the $55 a bottle Bolaro Shiraz 2011. They’re both wonderful, distinctively-Canberra wines, the Bolaro likely to win in the long run. However, the tasting proves the law of diminishing returns. For half of the price of the Bolaro, the $28 delivers 90 per cent of the quality. It’s highly aromatic, featuring the distinctive spice, pepper and ripe berry aromas of cool-grown shiraz. The medium bodied, lively, fresh and elegant palate reflects the aroma.

Peter Lehmann Eden Valley Portrait Riesling 2012 $15
Having dismissed this gold medal winner as just OK in a recent masked tasting, I grabbed another bottle a few days later. Whether my palate went AWOL, or the original bottle was damaged, I’ll never know. But the second tasting revealed a most appealing, aromatic, floral young riesling – delicate and light bodied at just 11 per cent alcohol, shimmering with fresh lime-like varietal flavour and cut through with zesty, refreshing acidity. It drinks well as an after-work refresher (as we had it at the second encounter) and would be good company with light seafood, salads and spicy Asian food.

Mr Riggs McLaren Vale The Gaffer Shiraz 2011 $19–$22
Mr Riggs, made by Ben Riggs, belongs with Woop Woop, Penny’s Hill and The Black Chook in the Galvanised Wine Group’s portfolio. The Gaffer sits in the quality-value sweet spot of the group’s rang, generally offering well-defined regional varietal character. We put the latest vintage, alongside several other shirazes, to the curry test. Against conventional wisdom, many fruity, soft Australian shirazes, retain their attractive flavours in the presence of cumin, cardamon, nutmeg, turmeric, black pepper and even chilli. And so it proved on this occasion. The delicious ripe-berry flavours welled up through other savoury flavours and the firmer, more-grippy-than-usual tannins.

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.