Category Archives: Wine review

Wine review — Penley Estate, Rochford & Madfish

12 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Penley Estate Coonawarra Phoenix Cabernet Sauvignon 2004 $19.99
At last year’s Limestone Coast Show, Singapore based writer, Ch’ng Poh Tiong awarded Phoenix the International Judge’s Trophy as his favoured wine of the show. Together with James Halliday, we’d ranked it at the top of the small 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon class, noting its vibrant, sweet, fruity aroma and juicy, fleshy, drink-now palate. Waxing metaphorical at the trophy presentation, Poh Tiong praised its ‘smouldering-ember smoky’ character – fitting for a wine named Phoenix, I suppose. With or without metaphors, it’s simply delicious and made specifically for early drinking. It’s available now at cellar door (08 8736 3211) and fine wine retail outlets.

Rochford Latitude Victoria Chardonnay 2003 & Pinot Noir 2003 $17 to $19
These are stunningly good wines at the price. At three years the Yarra Valley Chardonnay has a delicious crackling freshness to it and a combination of pure, stone-fruit varietal flavour with funky barrel-aged character. The pinot noir – a blend of Macedon and Yarra Valley material – is the best under-$20 Aussie pinot I’ve tried. Like the chardonnay, it’s bright, limpid and fresh with a core of pure varietal fruit flavour. It also captures pinot’s lovely, sweet perfume and soft, fine tannins. And there’s a satisfying savouriness and subtle background of toasty oak. Available at fine wine outlets and cellar door — rochfordwines.com or 03 5962 2119.

Madfish Western Australia Sauvignon Blanc Semillon 2005 $13 to $18
Madfish is the amazingly popular budget label of Howard Park, one of the west’s most in-form wineries. From the outstanding 2005 vintage, this white combines near equal parts of sauvignon blanc and semillon from Margaret River, Great Southern and Pemberton. The lightness, zippy freshness and herbal notes of sauvignon blanc set the tone while semillon adds backbone and mid-palate richness to a wine that’s all about high quality, pure fruit and happy summer refreshment. It’s good value at $18, but occasionally hits the discount bins at $13 or $14 a bottle.

Wine review — Morris of Rutherglen, De Bortoli Sacred Hill & d’Arenberg

5 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Morris Rutherglen Shiraz 2001 $12 to $16
While I suspect the extra bottle age has more to do with sluggish sales than maturation policy, I won’t argue – it’s just so rare to find maturing reds at the right price. A winner of a gold medal and trophy at last year’s Great Australian Shiraz Challenge, Morris 2001 delivers generous Rutherglen Shiraz flavours without the mind numbing levels of alcohol, oak or tannin sometimes seen from hot growing areas. It offers juicy, mouthfilling fruit flavour with ample soft tannins to give structure and real-red drinking satisfaction. At five years’ it’s perfectly mature and ready to enjoy.

De Bortoli Sacred Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2005 $4.50 to $6
They say you get what you pay for. But the present grape surplus and perennial retail price war means more flavour for your dollar. On special at $4.50 a bottle, Sacred Hill surely gives Chateau Cardboard an edge in the daily-quaffing stakes with its clean, fresh, plummy fruit aroma, generous flavour and soft tannins. It even has a pleasant vanilla-like oak character, attributable, the makers are honest enough to admit, to maturation on oak staves in the tanks, not barrel maturation. A very slight level of sweetness also helps to fill the mid palate.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale Tempranillo Grenache Souzao 2003 $37
In Chester Osborne’s latest red, tempranillo and grenache (familiar blending partners in Spain), join the less familiar souzao, a colourful but coarse native of Portugal, in a decidedly savoury, earthy and exotic blend for the adventurous drinker. The medium colour belies the wine’s great power – suggested by the herbal, earthy nose, then delivered in spades on a deep, tightly structured, every-changing palate. Each sip reveals something new and interesting. And it bears d’Arenberg stamp: a core of ripe, intense fruit flavour completely integrated with complex savoury and earthy characters. I suspect that this one will evolve for many years.

Wine review — Pizzini

29 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Pizzini King Valley Arneis 2005 $20, Verduzzo 2005 $18
The 2005s, due for release in February, taste even better than the lovely 2004s. Arneis, a Piedmontese variety, can be neutral but this one’s full of character with nashi-pear-like flavour and the extraordinarily zesty, pleasantly tart bite to make a mouth-watering aperitif or refreshing, all-purpose summer food wine. Verduzzo, originally from north-eastern Italy, delivers voluptuous, apricot-like aromas and flavours and rich, silky-textured palate – partly derived from the variety and partly from fermentation and maturation of a very small component of the blend in oak barrels. The 2004 displayed more oak influence but this lighter touch works better, in my view.

Pizzini King Valley Sangiovese 2004 $24, Sangiovese Rosetta $14.50
The full-bore, red sangiovese is bright and clean and kicks off with the variety’s delicious ‘bitter black cherry’ flavour. However, a wave of savoury, fine tannins soon ripples across the palate, drying out the finish and giving the grip necessary to accompany food. This is heaps better than most of the basic Chianti’s kicking around bottle shops – although you might find it interesting to serve it alongside a decent Chianti Classico to compare the style difference. The rosé is a fresh, light, crisp and dry style, still offering some cherry-like varietal flavour – a wine to chill and quaff any time. Cellar door phone 03 5729 8030.

Pizzini King Valley Nebbiolo 2000 $45
Nebbiolo, the noble red grape of Piedmont’s Barolo region, all too often disappoints, even on its native soil. But the great examples deliver incomparable perfume and an elegance, combined with power, that belies the often light colour. In the Pizzini vineyard, wallabies love the vine shoots, often decimating a crop that’s hard to set and ripen even under ideal conditions and, even then, difficult to turn into great wine. This 2000 has the variety’s lighter colour but captures some of the aromatic magic, savoury flavours and elegant, very firm structure. I was completely happy drinking it until Fred showed me the Reserve 2003 due for release in a few years at $80 to $100.

Wine review — Wynns, Framingham & Brookland Valey

22 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 $21 to $30
City Supa Barn last weekend offered a sky-high stack of Wynns 2002 at $20.99 – a bargain price for this satisfying, long-cellaring Coonawarra classic. It was one of my twelve gold-medal rated vintages at a recent tasting of all the Wynns cabernets back to the 1954 vintage. 2002 was a mixed vintage in Coonawarra as the cool conditions that favoured warmer areas further north caused some ripening problems and resultant greenish flavours. You won’t find these in Wynns, however. Low yields and careful fruit selection produced a particularly aromatic and concentrated cabernet with crystal clear varietal definition, good mid-palate richness, firm structure and velvet smooth tannins. It’s a joy to savour. And it’s built to last.

Framingham Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc 2005 $17 to $20
Judging at the New Zealand Top 100 Wine Show last year revealed the great superiority over 2004 of the 2005 sauvignon blancs. Not surprisingly at Marlborough’s southern latitude, vintage variation is quite marked. But when nature smiles, Marlborough makes fabulously fruity, distinctive whites across an increasing spectrum of subtly different styles. Using fruit from various points within the Wairau Valley (one of the two major valleys of Marlborough – the other is the Awatere Valley to the south), Framingham combines the herbaceous, in-your-face pungency of the cooler sites with the fuller, more tropical warm-site characters. The result is pure Marlborough refreshment.

Brookland Valley Estate Margaret River Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 about $60
If cabernet has a bad name in Australia at present, blame the proliferation of green and weedy wines from areas not suited to the variety. To restore your faith in the glory of this great grape, try the modestly priced Wynns wine above. Or splash out on this beautiful wine from Hardy’s Brookland Valley Estate, Margaret River. This is complete cabernet from the blackcurrant/black olive fruit aroma and flavour to the firm, tight, tannic structure to the powerful but not fat palate. At five years’ age it’s still youthful and fresh but and has years, if not decades, of development ahead.

Wine review — Krinklewood, Gosset Champagne & Margan

15 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Krinklewood Vineyard Hunter Valley Chardonnay 2003 $25
This is a delicious example of how top-notch grapes and sensitive winemaking produce a first-class wine that’s truly expressive of the variety and region. Suzanne and Rod Windrim grew the fruit on their biodynamic Krinklewood vineyard at Broke in the lower Hunter Valley; Jim Chatto made the wine at Monarch Winery. It’s a full but delicate chardonnay of striking varietal purity and stunning freshness — enhanced by a subtle nutty flavour and textural richness derived from fermentation and maturation on lees in barrel. It’s screw cap sealed and at three years combines a mature integration of fruit and barrel flavours with drink-me-now vivacity. Available through Candamber, Vintage Cellars or phone 02 9969 1311.

Gosset Brut Excellence Champagne NV $60
The Ginger Room at old parliament house offers Gosset at $15 by the glass – a delightful way to rediscover Champagne from this great, but not widely distributed, old Ay-based producer. Having been stung by a tricked-up NV from one of the major producers at Christmas it was a delight to taste a beautifully fresh example of the real thing, based on the classic rich but delicate blend of chardonnay, pinot noir and pinot meunier from top vineyards. Distributor David Burkitt says it’s available at Georges Liquor Stable and Benchmark as well as at The Ginger Room.

Margan Hunter Valley Semillon 2005 $18
Andrew Margan sources this from a low-yielding Broke vineyard planted by Lindemans in about 1970. It’s notably more fragrant than the semillons of nearby Pokolbin and a tad fuller on the palate, too. But it has similar, taut acid backbone, and lemon-like varietal flavour. The combination of delicate, lemony fruit, low alcohol (about 11 per cent) and bracing acidity is at odds with the prevailing Aussie ‘fruit bomb’ style. A pleasant tartness in the finish adds to its appeal with food. And, of course, it has the ability to age for many years, even decades, given correct storage. Cellar door phone number is 02 6574 7216.

Wine review — Leasingham Bastion, Brookland Valley & Jim Barry

8 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Leasingham Bastion Clare Valley Riesling 2005, Cabernet Sauvignon 2003 $10 to $14
What a terrific couple of new releases from Leasingham, the Clare Valley arm of Hardy Wine Company. The white delivers the freshness, delicacy and vitality of Clare riesling with that extra fruit power of the excellent 2005 vintage. It’s just perfect for the remaining warm months. Bastion Cabernet 2003 offers rich, regional chocolaty, minty varietal aromas backed by generous, mouthfilling flavours and the variety’s firm, satisfying tannins. Both of these regional specialties offer good value at $14 but the inevitable specials at $10 to $11 put them in bargain territory – another benefit of the intensely competitive environment.

Brookland Valley Reserve Margaret River Chardonnay 2003 $60-$65
I wonder why this beautiful wine, from the Western edge of the Hardy empire, is priced slightly higher than the company’s flagship Eileen Hardy Chardonnay? That anomaly aside, Brookland Reserve is one to savour drop by drop: the colour, aroma and flavour all show youthful, slow-evolving wine of exceptional dimension – a truly outstanding example of first class fruit warranting wild-yeast, barrel-fermentation and maturation. What might be intrusive inputs on lesser fruit, in this instance projects chardonnay at its opulent, just-one-more-sip best. And it has the structure to evolve with further cellaring.

Jim Barry The McRae Wood Clare Valley Shiraz 2002 $39.95
The unusually cool 2002 vintage produced wines of great concentration and sometimes elegance in South Australia’s warmer regions. While the term ‘elegance’ doesn’t quite fit this opulent 15.5 per cent alcohol red, the benign vintage conditions probably account for the impressive, sweet lift to the aroma and enormously concentrated palate. Although the fashion pendulum is swinging slowly but decisively towards more graceful, supple styles, there’s still widespread support for robust, traditional reds – especially when, like McRae Wood, they combine generosity of fruit with soft, juicy, easy-on-the-gums tannins. It’s a style that comes into its own with the onset of cold weather.

Wine review — Shelmerdine, Rolling & Redden Bridge

1 January 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Shelmerdine Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2004 $24-$26
This was the Chateau Shanahan preferred wine of three mid-$20’s 2004 Yarra Valley pinots tasted recently. St Huberts 2004, while pleasant, captured little of pinot’s magic; Giant Steps 2004 presented the dark-berry fruit, power and gaminess of the variety – a very, very good wine on a quality par with the Shelmerdine wine — which edged ahead on a style preference. A tad paler in colour than Giant Steps, Shelmerdine expressed some of pinot’s elusive, seductive perfume, plush fruit flavour and fine acid/tannin backbone. The intensity of fruit flavour and persistent tannins suggest a made-in-the-vineyard approach. Winery telephone number is 03 5433 5188

Rolling Central Ranges Chardonnay 2005 ($15), Climbing Orange Chardonnay 2005 ($20)
Former Rosemount winemaker Philip Shaw sources these lovely wines from the ‘rolling’ hills below 600 metres in the Central Ranges and from the adjoining ‘climbing’ slopes above 600 metres within the Orange appellation. The first is a pure, zesty, expression of chardonnay – strongly flavoured but deliciously crisp and dry. The second introduces the finer fruit character of the higher altitude subtly enhanced in texture, aroma and flavour by barrel fermentation and maturation. Both are polished, subtle, vivacious wines with capacity to evolve with age. Climbing, in particular, should reward a three-year rest in the cellar.
Redden Bridge Wrattonbully The Crossing Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 & Gully Shiraz 2002, both about $30
These are two outstanding single-vineyard wines produced by Greg Koch, a leading grower from Wrattonbully, the large newish wine-region abutting Padthaway to the north and Coonawarra to the South. I’ve tasted the wines during judging at the Limestone Coast Show, with Greg on his own turf and more recently in Canberra. They’ve passed the test every time. The cabernet sauvignon is textbook varietal, with a rare mid-palate richness and a very slight leafy – but not green — character. The shiraz is beautiful – ripe, generous and spicy with soft, fine tannin structure. And the trophy-winning 2003 is even better. Distributed by Winetrust Estates, phone 02 9949 9250

Wine review — Wynns, Taittinger & d’Arenberg

11 December 2005Wine reviewChris Shanahan

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

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

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

There’s gold in them thar liquor stores

11 December 2005Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do you identify the gold dust?

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

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

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

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

WINE REVIEWS

Wine review — Yalumba, Helm & Peter Lehmann

4 December 2005Wine reviewChris Shanahan

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

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

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