Wine review — Balnaves, Tim Adams & Deen De Bortoli

26 March 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Balnaves Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2002 about $35
2002 in Coonawarra was a small and very cool vintage. This produced many wines with great flavour concentration but also many cabernets showing the distinct leafy, green edge of under ripened fruit. Presumably through rigorous fruit selection, winemaker Pete Bissell sidestepped the latter problem to produce this particularly fragrant, elegant and silky cabernet — albeit with the firm backbone typical of the variety. At four years’ age it delivers powerful cabernet varietal aroma, flavour, structure and elegance but also the complexity and drinking satisfaction that comes with a little bottle age.

Tim Adams Clare Valley Shiraz 2004 about $26
Tim Adams began cranking out robust, satisfying Clare shiraz about twenty years ago. Gradually, as traced in this column a few years back, he refined the style, turning up the fruit volume and settling into a sympathetic oak maturation regime. While the incremental improvements show to the fullest in his flagship shiraz, The Aberfeldy, this one’s a chip off the old block. It shows typical Clare perfume that says “I’m shiraz and I’m from Clare”, and a matching buoyant, vibrant fruitiness on the palate. It has the intensity to carry a fair load of warming alcohol and a sturdy but soft tannin frame.

Deen De Bortoli Vat 8 Shiraz 2004 about $9.99
With a recommended price of $9.99 it’s odds on you’ll be able to find this rich, juicy drop for dollars a bottle cheaper. Company blurb says it’s sourced from the Riverina district and a few sips says the Riverina’s doing well with this variety – the aroma, flavour and structure are all about juicy, ripe, slightly spicy varietal shiraz. It’s soft and flavoursome and ready to enjoy now. Unusually for a wine of this price, it was matured for a year in older oak barrels – an incredibly important step in making satisfying, mellow red wines. It’s ready to enjoy right now.

Exporting our way out of surplus

26 March 2006WineChris Shanahan

Surrounded by cries of doom and gloom and real pain being suffered by many winemakers and grape growers, it’s easy to overlook the huge and continuing success of Australia’s wine industry.

In many ways it’s a model, market-focused, export-driven agricultural industry, delivering, in the main, highly-value-added exports – totalling $2.8 billion dollars in the year to February 2006.

However, our industry faces substantial medium term difficulties as global overproduction drags on export performance and local overproduction squeezes margins in a stagnant domestic market.

Each day we read stories of pain being felt by jilted grape growers. And the stock market bares every detail of Evans & Tate’s struggle for survival; the marked earnings and share price decline of McGuigan Simeon Wines; and scepticism about Foster’s ability to absorb Southcorp Wines.

For wine drinkers, overproduction manifests itself in lower prices, a proliferation of new brands and the rise of the clean skin. These unbranded wines have been around for decades, but the current surplus sees clean skin reds in particular cutting a swathe through popular brands and driving prices down sharply across all quality levels. For some reason whites seem less effected.

The surplus also appears to be finding a home in export markets. And as bulk wine (as opposed to bottled wine) exports gather unprecedented momentum, Australia’s dollar per litre return declines.

In August 1999, winemakers received an average of $4.63 per litre for the 230 million litres exported. In February, 2006 volume had grown to an impressive 711 million litres. But the value had declined alarmingly to $3.93 per litre.

In its February, 2006 report the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation commented, “Bulk wine shipments dominated growth this year. While still only representing 23% of the total mix, bulk wine shipments grew 40% to reach 165 million litres this year compared to 118 million litres in the previous year. By contrast, bottled shipments grew 3% to reach 531 million litres, up from 516 million litres”.

Much of this may prove to be opportunistic and pass when the current surplus dissipates – and may indeed hasten its end.

Some producers, however, have misgivings about bulk wine exports. One that I spoke to feared that in the UK market – where the average value per litre has fallen from $4.26 in February 2000 to $3.57 in February 2006 – that the arrival of sound but unexciting Australian wine at very low price points creates a perception that we’ve dropped our standards. This, they say, is damaging established brands.

But the other side of the coin is that the surplus has played a part in gaining access to the giant US market – notably through the rampant success of Yellowtail and to Germany, the most price conscious market in the world, where bulk sales have more than doubled but average a return of just $2.10 a litre.

And in the emerging Chinese market, bulk exports grew sixfold to 2.1 million litres while bottled wine sales leapt 62 per cent to 380 thousand litres in the year to February, 2006.

Given the global surplus, it’s not surprising to see our own industry’s bumpy ride. But the fact that sales continue to grow after such a prolonged period of phenomenal expansion – exports grew from 130 million litres worth $471 million in 1996 to 711 million litres worth $2.8 billion dollars in the year to February — suggests that our home grown surplus may come to be seen as a comparatively small, if painful overshoot in productive capacity.

Wine review — Bridgewater Mill, De Bortoli & Seppelt

19 March 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Bridgewater Mill Adelaide Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2005 $16 to $18
In general I’d rate Marlborough sauv blancs a country kilometre ahead of those from the Adelaide Hills. Marlborough’s offerings deliver buckets of pungent varietal character plus the full, juicy mid-palate richness often lacking in the local versions plus a unique, racy acidity. The 2005 vintage, however, seems to have tripped the sauv blanc switch at Bridgewater Mill, producing all the giggle and slurp deliciousness you’d ever want from the variety. It’s stunningly fresh, rippling with in-your-face varietal fruitiness (a spectrum of flavours from passionfruit to capsicum) and with a pleasing, teasing dryness, accentuated by a spine of zingy acidity.

De Bortoli Hunter Valley Shiraz 2004 $15 to $17
You can do amazing things with weird, wonderful, idiosyncratic Hunter shiraz. It’s off most red drinkers’ radar. But how many other red wines stand up to chilli, cardamom, cumin and the like – as this one did at Flavours of India restaurant, Civic. It’s not big and brawny like a Rutherglen shiraz; not opulent and alcoholic like a Barossa; nor supple and elegant like the Seppelt shiraz below. No. None of those would’ve worked. De Bortoli took on the heat and kaleidoscope of spicy flavours not with power or subtleness but with love-em-or-hate-em, earthy, raunchy, savoury Hunter flavours. Pass the bottle please.

Seppelt Victorian Shiraz 2004 $14 to $17
After enduring Canberra’s record hot summer, it’s probably hard to recall the two-week February heat wave that literally cooked the flavour out of much of Australia’s 2004 wine harvest. However, winemaker Arthur O’Sullivan’s central, western and southern Victorian domain missed the worst of the February heat then entered a benign, mild ripening season. “It’s a memorable vintage”, Arthur says – a view supported by the first of Seppelt’s 2004 red releases. A blend from the Grampians, Pyrenees, Glenlofty, Strathbogies and Bendigo, this is a fragrant, supple, and very fine example of just-one-more-glass-please cool climate shiraz. It’s screw cap sealed and should evolve well for about a decade.

History repeating itself in the Barossa

19 March 2006WineChris Shanahan

They say that history never repeats itself. But in the Barossa Valley, the grape oversupply crisis of the mid 1980s could be about to repeat itself.

This time around, it’s not just the small growers being caught in the spiralling price decline, but the owners of the broadacre plantings of the 1990s.

It’s in tough times like this that whole regions, not just affected individual growers, begin to look for solutions to the age-old boom-bust cycle of the industry.

For market-orientated thinkers, the Barossa poses a big but not unique branding problem. Indeed the concept of building and sustaining a brand Barossa can be transposed to any winegrowing region – including Canberra.

In the Barossa’s case, local vigneron and marketer, David Farmer, wonders how, after the area’s renaissance in the late eighties, so little of its output appears on Barossa denominated labels.

In the autumn edition of Barossa Living, an excellent new regional colour mag, editor Peter Fuller, quotes leading winemaker Robert O’Callaghan as saying, “… we still have a crazy situation, that despite all of the marketing and promotional work we’ve done for the region, less than thirty per cent of Barossa fruit is branded Barossa – the rest goes to other regions to prop up their wines and gets no acknowledgement”.

Since the eighties, O’Callaghan’s Rockford Wines has led the way in acknowledging the part played by the Barossa’s very old vines in making distinctive, powerful but graceful reds.

And O’Callaghan’s leadership in producing and proselytising the regional specialties continues to light the way for other winemakers – as it did twenty years ago. For example, those robust Kym Teusner grenache shiraz mourvedre blends reviewed here last week, like O’Callaghan’s early wines, are the product of a passionate young winemaker seeking fruit from distinguished old vines – and paying the grower adequately.

Despite the activity of these small, regionally focused makers – and prices of up to $8000 a tonne being paid for the very best old vine material – the question remains as to why seventy per cent of the Barossa’s fruit finds its way into anonymous multi-regional blends.

Part of the answer lies in the region’s dramatically expanded plantings, spurred by the shortages as the export boom took off in the mid nineties. The valley, like so many other Australian growing regions, simply overshot the mark – devaluing the currency, so to speak.

But even before the oversupply hit, the Barossa’s strength in boosting the flavour of multi-regional blends, by its very anonymity, helped, over time, to commoditise Barossa grapes. So much for brand Barossa.

While these multi-regional blends have been at the heart of Australia’s export success, Farmer criticises the larger companies for their dearth of Barossa branded wines.

While the whole story is somewhat more complicated and must take into account varieties – chardonnay for example – that don’t particularly express Barossa regional character or good varieties that are overcropped and poor quality, it’s unquestionable that making and marketing regional specialties builds value for everyone in the process – as benchmark wines like Rockford Basket Press Shiraz demonstrate.

And from the benchmarks flow less expensive but still expressive regional specialties.

There’s a lesson here to be learned by Canberra vignerons. If the Barossa, after 160 years, still struggles for a regional identity in the minds of consumers, Canberra, as a comparatively young district should diligently seek and acknowledge what it does best then vigorously and consistently promote it.

Wine review — Ravensworth, Lindemans & Teusner

12 March 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Ravensworth Canberra District Marsanne 2005, Sangiovese 2005 $22
Two wines due for release on March 22nd confirm Bryan and Jocelyn Martin’s Ravensworth as one of Canberra’s defining labels. The Marsanne is a weighty, viscous and highly distinctive drop, bristling with delicious, vibrant, honeyed flavours. And the Sangiovese rates as one the best Australian shots I’ve seen with this Italian variety. Tuscan versions range from dire to divine, with the best examples offering lifted perfume and tight elegant structure. Ravensworth is headed in the latter direction with its bright, pure fruit aroma and flavour and taut, fine tannin structure. It just needs a little time in bottle to emerge as a vibrant and sophisticated expression of the variety.

Lindemans Bin 65 Chardonnay 2005, Bin 50 Shiraz 2005 $7 to $9
Be ready for a massive new roll out of wines sealed with screw caps – led by the 2005 vintage of Lindemans popular bin range. In Melbourne two weeks ago, Chris Hatcher, winemaking boss of Fosters, said that with consumer acceptance of these seals on premium and super premium wines, the time had come to introduce screw caps on lower-priced wines, too. The first two Lindemans screw cap releases, with their focus on pure varietal fruit flavour, really suit this clean, reliable closure. The chardonnay is zesty, full flavoured and creamy textured; the Shiraz, too, is bright, fresh and fruit laden with soft, easy tannins giving structure.

Teusner Barossa Valley Joshua 2005 $24, Avatar 2004 $29
For all the talk of invaluable, very old Barossa vines, many small growers there are struggling to sell fruit — such is the severity of the grape glut and paucity of strongly branded Barossa wines from the major producers. The ready availability of such superb fruit has prompted a new generation of young winemakers, like Kym Teusner, to capture the unique and lovely flavours produced by the Valley’s old grenache, shiraz and mourvedre vines. Kym currently offers two of these wonderful GSM blends – the unoaked, juicy and delicious Joshua and the beautifully, deep, savoury and supple Avatar from the outstanding 2004 vintage.

Wolf Blass Black Label — rebuilding an icon, part 2

12 March 2006People, WineChris Shanahan

Each of Australia’s icon reds has a unique story – from the clear-sighted vision that sparked Grange’s steady march to international renown; to the brick-by-brick building of elegant classics like Cullens Margaret River Cabernet Merlot; to the bumpy, variable quality route traversed by Wolf Blass Black Label Cabernet Shiraz.

Blass’s flagship arrived with a thump and a bang – and serendipitously it turns out — in the mid seventies. Boldly labelled and boldly priced — at $4.80 it was second only to the $6 a bottle Penfolds Grange Wolf recalls – Black Label became the trophy wine of the punter through the seventies and eighties.

That serendipitous start, Wolf says, began when he won the 1974 Jimmy Watson Trophy. Although the victorious wine became the first Black Label, it had, in fact, been intended for the existing Grey Label red blend.

But with good supplies maturing in barrel, Wolf recalls blending and bottling under both labels. And winning Jimmy Watson Trophies again in the following two years, 1975 and 1976, provided all the inspiration he needed to put both the then unknown trophy and Black Label on the map.

A good part of Blass’s success grew from valuable insights that are as pertinent today as they were thirty years ago: firstly that wine should be delicious and easy to drink upon release; and that because most people don’t know or understand grape varieties all that well, labels ought to provide clues other than wine language – something that drinkers might understand and relate to.

Hence the birth of what Wolf calls ‘sporting colours for a sporting nation’ – the strong colours that you might see on footy teams or racehorses – topped off by Blass’s famous soaring eagle.

Thus the opulent and oaky cabernet sauvignon and shiraz blend that appealed to the Melbourne Wine Show judges, won the palates and comprehension – as Wolf Blass Black Label – of non-wine-buff drinkers.

As we saw in the Melbourne tasting two weeks ago, there was much more than easy drinkability to those early Black Labels. Many of the older vintages — particularly 1975 and 1976 — continue to drink well.

And the style changed with the introduction of heavily toasted oak from 1980 and then suffered, in my view, from the use of poorly seasoned oak that dominated fruit flavours. Nevertheless, the 1981, 1983 and 1987 still drink beautifully and only the 1984 and 1989 would I call disappointing.

If 1990 and 1991 seem a little oaky, they still show the strength of those two outstanding vintages. 1992 is gentle and soft and still going and precedes the dull and disappointing 1993 and 1994 vintages – victims of a bungled bottling and poor cork respectively.

While there’s signs of a bounce back in the1995 vintage, it’s the Black Labels from 1996 on that show increasingly seamlessness, power and taut structure.

Wolf’s original winemaker, John Glaetzer, attributes the arrival of high quality oak to “when the winemakers got money”. And Chris Hatcher, chief winemaker for Foster’s Group, says that after the compromised vintages of the mid nineties, a new commitment was made to putting Black Label amongst Australia’s best reds.

With help from Glaetzer and new Blass maker, Caroline Dunn, the opening of a small-batch fermentation cellar in 2001 and access to the very best fruit, there’s no doubt in my mind that Wolf Blass Black Label – exemplified by the 2002 vintage reviewed last week — is more polished, enjoyable, complex and potentially long lived than ever. It’s been a long journey. The reputation will follow.

Wine review — Wolf Blass Black Label, Penfolds Bin 28 & Penfolds Bin 138

5 March 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Wolf Blass Black Label Shiraz Cabernet Malbec 2002 $125
Black Label’s renaissance seems to have begun in about 1996 and to have gathered pace with the arrival of winemaker Caroline Dunn, the opening of a new small-batch cellar at the Blass winery in 2001, the encouragement of Fosters’ chief winemaker, Chris Hatcher, and the co-operation of John Glaetzer, Wolf’s original winemaker. From the great 2002 vintage, this one has the succulent depth of superior fruit and the tight structure to evolve for many years. Unusually for Black Label it contains more shiraz than cabernet – a vintage aberration, says Hatcher, as subsequent vintage return to cabernet predominance. A stunning wine.

Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz & Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2003 $19 to $26
The release of Penfolds bin number reds is an important event for the simple reason that the line provides such reliable drinking and cellaring. And strong consumer interest, invariably leads to near-cost discounting with Canberra prices this week as low as $18.95. Bins 28 and 128 are the warm-climate, cool-climate shirazes of the range — the former robust and chocolaty, the latter supple and driven by lovely ripe-berry flavours. My only caveat is that both samples had poor corks: wine penetration was half the length of the Bin 128 cork and one centimetre into Bin 28’s. That’s not good enough for wines of this calibre.

Penfolds Bin 138 Barossa Valley Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2004 $19 to $26
Grenache lacks the popular appeal of shiraz. Its musk-like fragrance and sometimes confection-like flavours in youth don’t always register as red wine. So, if you don’t like grenache, you probably won’t like Bin 138 at present. For despite the beautiful, plush depth of flavour and real red-wine structure, grenache is the keynote. However, with a reliable screw cap seal (and great track record) this one has the stuffing to evolve to a more earthy and savoury style over the next five to ten years as the primary grenache highnotes mellow, allowing the generous shiraz and firm mourvedre to flourish.

Wolf Blass Black Label — rebuilding an icon, part 1

5 March 2006People, WineChris Shanahan

If we are to believe the market, then it’s a big thumbs down to Wolf Blass Black Label red – a wine that bounced onto dinner tables in the mid seventies priced at a modest discount to Penfolds Grange, the most expensive Aussie red of the time.

It was a bold statement by Wolf Blass. Some said it was outrageous. But it worked and through the seventies and eighties Black Label became the wine to be seen drinking. It meant something to have Black Label on your table.

But sometime in the late eighties or nineties, the gloss wore off and the price gap between Grange and Black Label widened – so that Grange now fetches about $400 on release and Black Label around $125.

Since marked prices don’t necessarily reflect what is paid, the real value that drinkers put on elite wines is, perhaps, more accurately gauged by actual prices realised at auction.

By that measure Blass has a long way to go to restore the prestige of its flagship red. As the new release 2002 vintage hits retail shelves, the latest auction prices of earlier vintages — measured against a current replacement cost of $125 – show serious value declines.

The most recent price reported by Langton’s Auctioneers on last year’s 2001 vintage is $84 – a discount of thirty three per cent on the current release. And the picture seems no brighter for the 2000, 1999 or 1998 vintages, registering discounts of fifty-seven, fifty-six and thirty-seven per cent respectively.

Even the inaugural 1973 vintage languishes at $67 a bottle – a little over half the asking price of the current release.

Using the same replacement-value model, Grange fares somewhat better: last year’s 2000 vintage – a tiny release – recently fetched a premium of thirty-seven per cent on the assumed $400 release price. And while the highly regarded 1998 vintage traded at a premium of seventeen per cent, the 1999, 1997, 1996 and 1973 showed discounts of thirty-two, twenty-nine, ten and thirty-seven per cent respectively.

While the general trend suggests that it’s cheaper to buy Grange or Black Label at auction rather than retail, some of the older Granges do trade at stellar prices. For example, 1955, the oldest recorded in Langton’s current price realisations, recently fetched $4613.

There’s no such joy, however, for the Wolf Blass flagship. And that prompts the question as to when and why Black Label fell behind Grange and other top Aussie reds, and what sparked a remarkable quality rebound in the late nineties.

Insights into the origins and style of Black Label came from Wolf Blass himself at a tasting of the 1973 to 2002 vintages in Melbourne last week.

Wolf, a German immigrant, recalls the Australia of the sixties and seventies as a land of ‘hillbillies’ where men drank beer in the garage while women watched black and white television in the house.

Easy to drink, strongly brand wine might be the catalyst to bring them together, Blass believed. Hence, Wolf’s boldly labelled 1966 Yellow Label Rhine Riesling became the first of a phenomenally successful line, and the model for all the colour coded reds and whites that were to follow.

As we’ll see next week Black Label emerged, albeit serendipitously, in Wolf Blass’s quest to make “sexy wines… that make strong women weak and weak men strong”.

Wine review — Hanging Rock, McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale & Rochford

26 February 2006Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Hanging Rock Heathcote Cambrian Rise Shiraz 2003 $27
Winemaker John Ellis calls this the ‘son’ of Hanging Rock’s flagship $55 shiraz reviewed last week – and it is very much a chip off the old block. At half the price, it offers great value as it has the rich flavour, silky smoothness and finesse of Heathcote shiraz, albeit without the extraordinary concentration of its parent. It’s a blend from various vineyards sprinkled along the red soils — supposedly of Cambrian origin – on the eastern slopes of the north-south orientated Mount Camel Range – heart of Victoria’s Heathcote region. Cambrian Rise should drink well and evolve for up to ten years if well cellared.

McWilliams Hunter Valley Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2000 $45
One year before Max Schubert created Grange Hermitage, Maurice O’Shea made the first semillon from the Lovedale vineyard – a flat, sandy and unprepossessing site, planted in 1946. Known variously, over the years, as Lovedale Riesling, Anne Riesling and, finally, Lovedale Semillon, the wine has become a long-lived benchmark of the unique, idiosyncratic Hunter style. This new release, from the very cool 2000 vintage, seems to be particularly slow maturing. Less than a year ago it showed the grassy, sauvignon-blanc-like character of the cool year. It’s now slipped into a more lemony, taut, typical and glorious Hunter semillon mode with decades of life ahead.

Rochford Macedon Ranges Pinot Noir 2003 $29
This is a step up in price and quality from the very good Rochford Latitude pinot noir reviewed a few weeks ago. At $19 it offered a convincing introduction to pinot noir. For an extra $8 a bottle this one — sourced from mature vines located 600 metres above sea level in Victoria’s Macedon region – takes the experience another step or two towards the real excitement offered by Burgundy’s classic red variety. The pale colour belies the heady, seductive perfume, great fruit depth and tight but very fine structure of a truly delicious red made to savour over the next 3 to 4 years.

Lovedale Semillon and the emergence of a Hunter specialty

26 February 2006People, Vineyard, WineChris Shanahan

The release this week of the magnificent McWilliams Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2000, reminds us that greatness is often accompanied by idiosyncrasy.

And in the case of Hunter semillon, idiosyncrasy begins with a paradox. How can a comparatively delicate wine style emerge from such a warm, humid and wet climate? Haven’t we been told for decades that elegant wines come from cool regions?

The answer appears to lie, say McWilliams, in “the humidity, afternoon cloud cover and gentle sea breezes [that] temper the summer and afford excellent ripening conditions”.

Unquestionably, something is up as warm-climate semillon tends to make clumsy wines smelling and tasting of wet hessian.

But the peculiarities of the lower Hunter allow vignerons to harvest semillon at very low sugar ripeness without suffering the green, tart, unripe flavours that generally accompany such early harvesting.

True, very young Hunter semillon has an austere acid edge, but the ‘lemongrass’ and ‘lemon’ fruit flavours underlying the acidity have a sweet, delicious core. While the bone-dry austerity of young semillon may seem at odds with prevailing Aussie wine styles, some makers, like Brokenwood and Margan have succeeded in tempering the austerity without losing the distinctive regional flavours.

Others, like McWilliams Mount Pleasant Elizabeth and Lovedale and Tyrrell Vat 1, persist with the more austere styles that age so beautifully. This style emerged close to its present from in the 1960s.

According to the late Murray Tyrrell, Ray Kidd of Lindemans put modern Hunter semillon firmly on track with the introduction of protective winemaking technology — principally through the use of temperature controlled ferments and inert gas blanketing.

Great and age worthy Hunter semillons preceded Lindeman’s initiatives – the first from the Lovedale, for example, was made in 1950 – but the introduction of protective winemaking enabled the style to flourish.

McWilliams introduced the technology to its Mount Pleasant winery in 1967 and for decades the delicate, lively and long-lived Elizabeth Riesling (as Hunter semillon was often called in those days) became one of Australia’s most popular wines.

Elizabeth’s popularity waned during the eighties and Hunter semillon, despite its extraordinary qualities, appeared to be marginalised: loved only by wine experts, aficionados and part of the Sydney market.

Whether or not there’s widespread commercial hope for the genre, it’s hard to tell. But the core of makers attending the classic style, sourcing small parcels from the Lower Hunter’s great old vineyards, appears to be growing.

And that’s a trend fanned by aficionados and leading wine shows where judges regularly reward the classic long-lived styles.

But is it a style that only the initiated can love? Definitely not. The popularity of Elizabeth in the BC era (before chardonnay) suggests otherwise. And, of course, the sheer glory of drinking a mature Tyrrell’s Vat 1 or Lovedale is the most convincing argument of all.

Given semillon’s waning popularity in the eighties and nineties and the poor returns enjoyed by most makers, we should be thankful that McWilliams persevered with the low-yielding Lovedale vineyard and the stunning wines from it, crafted since 1978 by Phil Ryan.

A wine of Lovedale Semillon’s calibre is rare: it develops slowly in bottle, gradually building richness upon richness as it unfolds over the decades from lean and lemony in youth to honeyed and toasty with age. It sits squarely in the Lower Hunter mould, yet has a unique intensity and power attributable to the drab-looking, sandy site earmarked for semillon by Maurice O’Shea half a century ago.

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