They’ve Bin everywhere — Penfolds releases new reds

16 March 2011People, Vineyard, Wine, Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Price seems always at the heart of any new release of Penfolds much-loved, highly traded bin number wines. Fierce retail battles became part of the landscape from the late seventies, following the collapse of retail price maintenance.

In recent years, however, a reticence to be first to cut means a little retail shadow boxing precedes the first real punch being landed – usually a king hit of margin numbing power.

This year for example, Kemenys, a large Sydney independent, and 1^st Choice, owned by Coles, swung the first air punches. Both promised not to be beaten; but neither revealed their prices. Then Dan Murphy, the Woolworths-owned industry giant, burst out of its corner, smashing prices to around cost – forcing the “We won’t be beaten” retailers to follow.

This all happened about two weeks ago (from day of publication), so prices will have moved on, as liquor specials normally run for one week. But competitive pressure remains hot, increasing the likelihood of retailers taking out the Penfolds bins a few more times yet.

The extreme price variability of Penfolds reds isn’t unique. Any wine capable of driving retail traffic can be sucked into the weekly discounting cycle. But Penfolds stands alone in its appeal to collectors and the volume of older vintages moving through the secondary market.

Indeed Penfolds reds underpin traditional auctions. But if auction volumes are large, they remain a buyers market. Recent prices suggest that collectors simply have to buy at peak discount if they want their collections to even hold value.

The accompanying table compares retail prices for the new releases and the most recent auction prices for the previous vintage, released a year ago.

The just released Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2009, for example, has a recommended retail price of $33.99 but sold at $18.45 shortly after release. At about the same time, the 2008 vintage fetched a hammer price of $20 at Langton’s auctions – translating to about $18 net for the seller (after an estimated 10 per cent commission to the auctioneer) and a net price to the buyer of $23, after adding Langton’s 15 per cent buyer’s premium and GST.

In this example the seller received 45 cents a bottle less than the rock bottom discounted retail price of the new release; and the buyer paid $4.55 more – but still $10.99 below the recommended price. And the auctioneer clipped the ticket on both sides.

Whatever we make of the price disparities, not everyone piles into the specials and much of the new release will trickle through retail stores at or around the recommended price.

Winemaker Peter Gago says prices of the bin wines are now underpinned by very strong overseas demand. “We can’t keep up with it”, he says, “especially Bin 389 and Bin 407”.

Interest is “enormous” in Europe and America, Thailand loves Bin 2 Shiraz Mataro (little known in Australia) and China can’t get enough – literally. Gago says people are “buying in California and Europe and on-selling to China” outside official distribution channels.

Still, there’s ample to satisfy demand in Australia and the wines are very, very good – even those from the 2008 vintage, perhaps the hottest and most difficult ever in South Australia.

Gago describes 2008 as “a vintage of two parts – pertaining to the profound differences of fruit before and after the extreme SA heatwave of March 3–16”. In the unprecedented heatwave the temperature exceeded 38 degrees for 12 days and 35 degrees for the balance.

We’ve heard lots of talk about pre- and post-heat 2008 vintage – including stories of wine fermenting out to a port-like 18 per cent alcohol. Unlikely as it seems, though, we’ve yet to find a post-heat winemaker.

Before talking to Gago, though, we popped the wines on the tasting bench, sipping them over three or four days. The 2008s in the line up passed the taste test with honours, with no sign of the porty flavours or hard tannins expected of a very hot vintage. After that, knowing whether they were pre- or post-heat seemed academic. But we asked Peter Gago.

He says he harvested Magill Estate from February 6, a month before the heatwave commenced, and had 90–95 per cent of Barossa material in the winery by the time the heat arrived on 3 March. Quite a lot of grapes from later-ripening cooler areas like Coonawarra arrived after the heat – but the heat in those areas proved less damaging.

We can assume much of the cabernet in Bin 389 and Bin 407 to be in this category, though neither shows any ill effects.

Bin 23 Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir 2010 $32–$39.99
Bin 23 is an unlikely star of this year’s line up. It’s the least traded of the bin wines – just one sale we could trace in Langton’s records and no sign of retailer discounting in our Google search, with the exception of Glengarry of Auckland. It’s fully priced at the recommended price but if you can persuade a retailer to around $30, you’re on the money. Penfolds early pinots tended to be big and burley without what pinotphiles call “pinosity”. The 2010 is simply lovely – a fragrant, silky, complex pinot with the Penfolds structural stamp.

Bin 138 Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2009 $17.55–$29.99
GSM stands for good stuff, mate or grenache shiraz mataro, in this instance led by 2009’s pure fruitiness. Grenache leads the charge here with its high-toned, musky, fruity perfume – characters that comes through in the smooth, fruity palate. Shiraz adds body and depth, while mourvedre injects spiciness and firm structural tannins. The juicy fruitiness makes Bin 138 a good drink now but it also cellars well. But try before you buy, as grenache’s distinct flavour doesn’t appeal to everyone.

Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2009 $18.45–$33.99
Young Bin 128 often proves tricky in masked tastings. The elegant structure and firm tannins sets our thoughts down the cabernet track. But ultimately the ripe berry flavours and spiciness at the core point back to cool-climate shiraz, albeit in a particularly tannic Penfolds mould. We prefer Bin 128 with five to ten years bottle age.

Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz 2008 $18.45–$33.99
Though priced the same as Bin 128, Bin 28 tends to appeal more widely and outperform Bin 128 at auction. It was originally sourced from Penfolds Kalimna vineyard in the northern Barossa then decades back became a multi-region, warm-climate blend, with a significant Barossa component. It’s bold and tannic But the abundant, soft tannins form a deep, complex matrix with the wine’s sweet, ripe fruit – reminiscent of very ripe black cherries. It’s ripe but not over-ripe; tannic but not hard; and built to cellar, though it’s appealing now, too.

Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $33.65–$54.99
Bin 407 is a straight cabernet sourced principally from the Limestone Coast region, stretching from Padthaway to Coonawarra. In the 2008 vintage it’s built on very ripe cabernet flavours towards the cassis end of the variety’s spectrum. Over a few days’ tasting this sweet, purely varietal fruit flavour gradually seeped through the tight, fine cocoon of oak and fruit tannin. Despite the wine’s strength and backbone, it’s elegantly structured — a character that sure to be revealed after cellaring over the next five to ten years.

Bin 150 Marananga Shiraz 2008 $47.90–$64.99
The new Bin 150 acknowledges the unique quality of shiraz grown around gently undulating Marananga, Gnadenfrei, Stonewell and Seppeltsfield on the Barossa’s western rim. Penfolds winemakers revere the area. Peter Gago says the new wine, matured in a combination of new and old French and American oak, comes from several vineyards around Marananga. It’s a big, buoyant wine, flouncing with fruit and oak, the aroma and palate boosted by volatile acidity (winemaker jargon for vinegar). It’s present in all wines in trace amounts, though not normally detectable. A tiny increment in volatile acidity, as Bin 150 illustrates, adds a thrilling dimension to the oak-fruit interplay. Grange creator, Max Schubert, enshrined the practice in Penfolds red wine making, though his successors appear to have backed off (until now).

Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2008 $37.45–$64.99
Bin 389 was originally an extension of the Grange style — big, bold, tannic and matured in American oak — but using cabernet, rather than shiraz as the leading variety. Over the decades fruit sourcing for the cabernet component shifted decisively to the cool southeast and now includes Bordertown, Wrattonbully, Padthaway and Coonawarra. Shiraz continues to come from warm areas. In 2008 we see Bin 389 at its biggest and boldest – led by intense, firm cabernet; filled out by shiraz and flaunting the influence of American oak. These all come through, though, as a single unified flavour, albeit idiosyncratic, in a wine of great power. Bin 389 is best after extended cellaring – ten years and more.

Wine	Recommended retail $	Best advertised $	Auction seller’s net price $ ²	Auction buyer’s net price $³
Penfolds Bin 23 Pinot Noir	39.99	24.65 ¹	22.50	28.75
Penfolds Bin 138 Barossa Valley Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre	29.99	17.55	18.90	24.15
Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiriaz	33.99	18.45	18.00	23.00
Penfolds Bin 28 Kalimna South Australia Shiraz	33.99	18.45	18.90	24.15
Penfolds Bin 407 South Australia Cabernet Sauvignon	54.99	33.65	23.40	29.90
Penfolds Bin 150 Marananga Barossa Valley Shiraz	64.99	47.90	No sale	No sale
Penfolds Bin 389 South Australia Cabernet Shiraz	64.99	37.45	32.40	41.40

Glengarry wines, Auckland. Price in Australian dollars. All other prices Dan Murphys.
Last sale of previous vintage, Langton’s Auctions, assumed 10% auctioneer’s commission.
Last sale of previous vintage, Langton’s auctions, including auctioneer’s premium and GST.

Wine review — Pizzini, Waipara Hills and Paxton

13 March 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Pizzini King Valley Verduzzo 2010 $20–$22
Verduzzo, a native of north eastern Italy’s Friuli-Venezia Giula region, thrives on the Pizzini family’s vineyards on the river flats of Victoria’s King Valley. It makes full-bodied dry white (although there’s a sweet version, too), with an aroma and taste reminiscent of melon rind and lemon. The fresh, full palate finishes with a pleasant, tart bite, setting it apart from mainstream varieties. It’s fermented mainly in stainless steel tanks at low temperature to capture fresh fruity flavours. But a small component fermented in oak barrels adds subtle complexity and rich texture.

Waipara Hills Equinox Pinot Noir 2009 $27–$30
New Zealand’s Waipara region sits between Christchurch and Marlborough in northern Canterbury. Clearly its long, cool, dry ripening season suits pinot noir. Equinox is a pale to medium in colour, with a bright, youthful crimson hue at the rim. It’s highly aromatic, featuring much of the pinot spectrum: spice, musk, red berries and earthiness. These characters come through, too, on a very fine and elegant, tasty palate. High acidity joins with fine tannins to give structure and a racy, freshness. It’s a wine to enjoy over the next two or three years but seems to lack the length or depth to develop over the long term.

Paxton AAA McLaren Vale Shiraz Grenache 2009 $20–$23
This is an irresistibly slurpable, gentle wine built on vibrant fruit flavours and proven symbiosis of the shiraz-grenache blend. It’s generously flavoured and ripe, as you’d expect from warm McLaren Vale. But there’s nothing heavy, hot or overly tannic about it as we sometimes see from these warmer areas. David Paxton writes that it’s a blend of five parcels of shiraz with three of grenache – ultimately in a ratio of two-thirds shiraz to one-third grenache. The grenache tempers the shiraz, adding fragrant high notes and an attractive spiciness to the fuller earthy, savoury shiraz character.

How Winewise beat National Wine Show to the punch

9 March 2011People, WineChris Shanahan

Over the last few decades the boasting theme of Australian wine show organisers changed fundamentally. “My show’s bigger than yours” gave way to “mine’s better than yours”. Canberra’s National Show, held each November, boasted longest and strongest across those decades. It billed itself as the grand final – the last major show of the year, with entries to many classes restricted to medal winners from other shows.

Then a few years back various wine industry players began criticising the national. Its tough entry standards, designed to filter out all but the best wines, had become too restrictive, they said. In particular, minimum quantity requirements, and a reluctance to recognise the growing importance of regional wine shows, left large swathes of small makers out of contention.

Over time, the absence of so many top players across all classes sapped the show’s credibility – especially its “grand final” claim.

But the show organisers listened to the criticism and in 2010 introduced a raft of changes. By then, however, they’d been usurped by Canberra’s Winewise magazine. Building on the credibility of the long-established Winewise Small Vignerons Awards, Winewise conducted its own grand in February 2010.

Proprietor Lester Jesberg, prompted in part by the National Wine Show’s shortcomings, had plans for the first Winewise Championship well under way by October 2009 – a year ahead of the National’s changes. As we drove from Melbourne airport to judge at the 2009 Macedon Regional Wine Show, Jesberg provided details.

His idea was to hold a ‘best of the best’ competition, inviting gold medallists from Australia’s national and regional wine shows – a position not all that far from the National’s revised stance.

Then, recognising that many of our best producers don’t enter wine shows, Winewise extended the invitation to wines that had succeeded in its own regular masked tastings – conducted to wine show standards.

At www.winewise.com.au, Jesberg comments on this year’s championship, “While the National Show has now revised its eligibility criteria to recognize the Winewise Small Vigneron Awards and selected Regional Shows, many smaller producers still find the criteria hard to meet and confine their wines to the regional shows, thus missing out on valuable benchmarking across the national spectrum. This competition brings all the wines together for the benefit of both winemakers and consumers.”

The list of medallion winners (the best wine from each category) is truly impressive. It includes wines from Australia’s largest and smallest producers and, with only a few outriders, the varieties match known regional specialties.

The outriders were a merlot from Mudgee (Charnwood Estate 2009), a Barossa tempranillo (Running with Bulls 2009) and a Goulburn River mourvedre (Terra Felix E’vette’s Block 2009). But these results are nevertheless credible, and simply confirm that masked tastings strip away our prejudices.

While the full list of results won’t be revealed until April, a sneak preview shows that it’s peppered with wonderful wines. However, like the National’s catalogue, big gaps remain despite efforts to rope in all the champs. So many wonderful wines are simply not there.

Len Sorbello of Winewise admits, “not all invitees entered their wines”. That could be for a number of reasons, but most likely because many of our very best small producers see no benefit in entering wine shows.

The best of these are their own fiercest critics. They constantly benchmark their own wines against the best from around the world and remain forever restless. They’re harsh and honest in their own appraisals and always see room to improve their wines through fine-tuning in the vineyard and winery.

These makers need neither the marketing benefit of awards nor the benchmarking provided by judges. They’ll never enter shows no matter how nicely they’re asked. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

It simply means that grand final wine shows or championships, by whatever name, can’t really be called the ‘best of the best’. ‘Best of the best wines entered in shows’ would be more accurate. And that will always include plenty of top names.

That doesn’t diminish the value of the National or Winewise Championship or any other well-run show or competition. They remain a major force for good. They highlight outstanding wines to consumers, relegate poor quality products and promote discussion among winemakers. And many makers attend exhibitor tastings, looking long and hard at winning wines for clues about how to improve their own products.

And the honours list from the 2011 Winewise Championship, judged in February, offers some magnificent drinking. The full list of results will be published in the April edition of Winewise.

The 2011 medallion winners

Chardonnay: 2009 Penfolds Reserve Bin 09A Chardonnay (Adelaide Hills)

Riesling: 2005 St Hallett Eden Valley Riesling (Eden Valley)

Sauvignon blanc: 2010 Wicks Estate Sauvignon Blanc (Adelaide Hills)

Semillon: 2006 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon (Hunter Valley)

Pinot gris: 2010 Nepenthe Altitude Pinot Gris (Adelaide Hills)

Viognier: 2009 Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier (Eden Valley)

Other dry white: 2006 Tahbilk Marsanne (Goulburn Valley)

Sweet white: 2009 Yalumba FSW8B Botrytis Viognier (Wrattonbully)

Sparkling wine: 2000 Freycinet Radenti Sparkling (Tasmania)

Pinot noir: 2008 Paringa Estate, Estate Pinot Noir (Mornington Peninsula)

Cabernet sauvignon: 2008 Fuddling Cup Cabernet Sauvignon (Geographe WA)

Bordeaux blend: 2009 Catching Thieves Cabernet Merlot (Margaret River)

Merlot: 2009 Charnwood Estate Merlot (Mudgee)

Classic red blend: 2008 Lindemans Limestone Ridge (Coonawarra)

Shiraz: 2009 Shaw and Smith Shiraz (Adelaide Hills)

Tempranillo: 2009 Running With Bulls Tempranillo (Barossa Valley)

Other red blend: 2009 Gilligan Shiraz Grenache/Mourvèdre (McLaren Vale)

Other red varietal: 2009 Terra Felix E’vette’s Block Mourvedre (Goulburn Valley)

Wine review — St Hugo, Grossett, McWilliams Mount Pleasant, Chapel Hill, Quinta das Stencostas and Bremerton

9 March 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Jacob’s Creek St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon 2007 $33–$50
Coonawarra, South Australia

Cabernet sauvignon has been called the king of grapes; but never the queen. Anthropomorphically speaking, it’s a commanding, manly variety, personified by St Hugo – a solid, square-jawed, broad-shouldered, unapologetic Don Draper of a red, bristling with five-o’clock-shadow tannins. Like Draper, though, it charms with a combination of power, elegance and sweet complexity, underlying a tough, inscrutable surface. Our sample drank well for a week after opening – its deep, sweet, ripe varietal fruit flavour gradually welling up through the firm tannins.

Jeffrey Grosset Gaia 2008 $60
Clare Valley, South Australia

Cabernet sauvignon reveals a feminine side in mixed company – usually its companions from France’s Bordeaux region, cabernet franc and merlot. In Jeffrey Grosset’s Gaia these varieties boost the perfume, create a unique but cabernet-based flavour and mollify the still significant tannins. Where brooding St Hugo leads with tannin and slowly reveals fruit, Gaia dazzles with fruit then follows with deep, velvety tannins. Grosset’s winemaking signature – shimmering, pristine, varietal fruitiness –probably stems from his mastery of riesling, a wine that relies on fruit alone. He transposes that effectively into this generous, graceful, oak-matured, potentially long-lived red.

McWilliams Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2010 $11.99–$17.99
Hunter Valley, New South Wales

These days the word “semillon” unaccompanied by “sauvignon blanc” is the wine marketer’s kiss of death. Yet this unloved (on its own) variety performs beautifully in parts of Australia and in the Hunter makes unique, lemony, tart, low-alcohol dry whites capable of prolonged ageing. They’re written about a lot, but remain a niche variety largely, I believe, because of the idiosyncratic, love-it or hate-it flavour. Fortunately for true believers, anti-fashion comes at a discount. So, Elizabeth, one of the oldest and biggest selling of the style is often slashed to around $12. It’s simply delicious in that unique, lemony, tart, bone-dry way.

Chapel Hill Il Vescovo Savagnin 2010 $16–$20
Kangarilla, McLaren Vale, South Australia

Last decade Australian vignerons planted the Spanish white variety albarino, then found that it was actually savagnin, a non-musk clone of traminer. By whatever name, it’s thriving in a variety of sites with makers largely settling on “savagnin” rather than its other synonyms. Chapel Hill’s savagnin grows at Kangarilla, one of McLaren Vale’s cooler, elevated sites, towards the southern boundary of the Adelaide Hills. The flavour’s unique – combining stone fruit, citrus and savouriness in a full, but subtle way. Contact with the skin after crushing and maturation on spent yeast cells added texture and a pleasant tannic tweak to the finish.

Quinta das Setencostas Branco 2009 $10.49–$14.99
Alenquer, Portugal

Until recently we’d not have found this on an Australian retail shelf. But the strong dollar combined with the growing confidence and international knowledge of our big retailers sees them scouring the world for profitable direct imports – like this tasty Portuguese white imported by Coles for its 1^st Choice and Vintage Cellars stores. It’s from the Alenquer region, not a household name in Australia, and a blend of ferneo pires, arinto, chardonnay, rabo de ovelha and vital. It’s a medium bodied, bone-dry style with what we might call vinous rather than varietal flavours against a leesy background, with quirky, dry savoury finish. It’s fully priced at $14.99 but very good value during periodic discounts to $10.49.

Bremerton Coulthard Cabernet Sauvignon 2008 $19–$22
Langhorne Creek, South Australia

Langhorne Creek, one of Australia’s biggest and most important winegrowing regions, produces rich, full-flavoured reds economically. Its varietally pure, sumptuous reds, particularly cabernet sauvignon, earned the area’s reputation as Australia’s mid palate – and drove large scale planting there in the 1990s. While the multi-region blends have a role, it’s far more interesting, I believe, to enjoy Langhorne Creek on its own. In this lovely red, winemaker Rebecca Wilson captures the full, ripe flavour of cabernet from her family’s vineyard. It has the region’s thumbprint slurpy, juicy fruit flavours and abundant but velvet tannins.

Spicing up beer flavour

9 March 2011BeerChris Shanahan

Brewers love tinkering with flavours. Indeed the natural additives they use goes way beyond the traditional ingredient list of malt, water, hops and yeast.

Some flavoured beers go back centuries. Belgium Lambic beers, for example, originated as natural ferments of beer with blackberry (cassis), raspberry (Framboise), cherry (kriek) or peach (peche) – a process described by one brewer as a tag-team of microbes producing a palatable, if idiosyncratic, sweet and sour sipping beer.

And in northern Germany, Berliner Weisse, dating probably from the sixteenth century, remains popular. It’s a low alcohol wheat beer with a sour, lactic flavour, usually served pre-mixed with raspberry or woodruff cordial.

While some additives, like Stilton, chilli and pizza sound positively weird, others, carefully handled, produce interesting, tasty beers. The list includes banana, ginger, Australian pepper berry, chocolate, coffee, shiraz, various herbs and spices and even fresh truffle.

Beer review — Feral White and Weihenstephaner

9 March 2011Beer reviewChris Shanahan

Feral White 330ml $3.42
Feral White, from the Swan Valley, combines wheat and barley, seasoned with coriander and orange peel, in the Belgian style popularised by Hoegaarden. It delivers the style’s fresh, clove-like aroma and lemon-fresh palate. But it lacks the creamy richness of the originals and finishes perhaps a little sweet.

Weihenstephaner Original Bayrisch Mild 500ml $4.77
This lager is a pale, mild and subtle counterfoil to the assertively bitter Weihenstephaner Pilsner reviewed a few months back. Subtlety is the keynote all through: malty aroma with just a hint of hops aromatics; smooth, deep, velvety palate with just enough hops to dry out the finish.

Wine review — Grosset, Bleasdale and Tower Estate

6 March 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Grosset Adelaide Hills

Pinot Noir 2009 $66
Chardonnay 2009 $53

Jeffrey Grosset is best known as a producer of pristine Clare Valley rieslings – wines made protectively to display fruit, fruit and nothing but fruit. This mastery of riesling making shows, too, in the intensity and varietal purity of his pinot noir and chardonnay – barrel aged wines that we might expect to reveal significant winemaker inputs. Sip through the wines over a couple of days, and the winemaking textures and complexities emerge. But shimmering fruit remains always at the front. Both come from the cool Adelaide Hills (to the south of Clare on the same Mount Lofty Ranges).

Bleasdale Langhorne Creek Potts’ Catch Verdelho 2010 $16–$18
The Potts family say that verdelho was one of the first varieties planted in their vineyards back in nineteenth century. It thrives there. And while probably originally planted to make fortified wine (as it does in Madeira), verdelho retains good acidity in this warm region, endearing itself as a variety for dry white wines. The aroma’s of tropical fruit, with an appealing sappy undertone – characters that come through on a fresh and fruity drink-now palate. The vineyard, established by Frank Potts in 1850, is on the Bremer River flood plain near Lake Alexandrina, South Australia.

Tower Estate Adelaide Hills Pinot Gris $22–$25
Samantha Connew took over winemaking at the Hunter’s Tower Estate in 2010, following ten brilliant years at Wirra Wirra, McLaren Vale. Connew’s arrival coincided with Tower’s belated but welcome shift to screw cap seals – a tremendous boon for all of their wines, but especially for vibrant, fresh whites like this, their second pinot gris from young vines in the Adelaide Hills. The wine presents a zesty, citrusy freshness with subtle pear-like varietal flavour and just a trace of the rich texture (but not the oiliness or viscosity) often seen in some expressions of the variety.

Wine review — Louee Wines, Yering Station, Jacob’s Creek, Paxton, Innocent Bystander and Terra a Terre

2 March 2011Wine reviewChris Shanahan

Louee Nullo Mountain Riesling 2010 $25
Rylstone, New South Wales

It’s just 50 kilometres from Mudgee (450 metres) but Nullo Mountain vineyard sits at 1,100 metres. At that altitude grapes develop varietal flavour at low sugar levels while retaining spine-tingling acidity that’d make a German vigneron smile. Over at Mudgee David Lowe helps these wonderful grapes become intense, delicate, low-alcohol wines. There’s the brisk, lemony, 10.5 per cent alcohol, bone-dry version made for the long haul but wonderful now, too. And there’s the sinfully pleasurable 12-per-cent alcohol late-picked version – lush and sweet, combining lemony varietal flavour with apricot-like tang of botrytis and drying, cleansing acidity.

Yering Station Shiraz Viognier 2008 $28
Yarra Valley, Victoria
Alcohol in red wine is a hot topic. But it’s surprising how little a wine’s alcohol content tells you about its aroma, flavour or structure. For example, this cool-climate shiraz is a world apart from the warm-grown Jacob’s Creek Barossa wine reviewed here today. Yet both weigh in at 14.5 per cent alcohol. For Yering Station, that’s partly the result of a hot vintage. But even so it’s a cool-climate shiraz to its boots – concentrated, for sure, but medium bodied, spicy and peppery with a supple and soft but still tannic palate.

Jacob’s Creek Centenary Hill Shiraz 2006 $60
Jacob’s Creek and Rowland Flat, Barossa Valley, South Australia
A decade ago, with an eye to evolving markets, Jacob’s Creek introduced a “reserve” range. About five years later they added to the brand several super premium wines that’d lived under other Orlando labels. Appropriately that included the flagship Centenary Hill shiraz sourced from three old shiraz blocks on Jacob’s Creek (yes, it really exists) and an old block at nearby Rowland Flat. The 2006 is a highly aromatic wine combining the immense power and chocolaty richness of Barossa shiraz with an attractive spicy overlay, probably resulting from cool breezes flowing down the creek.

Paxton Tempranillo 2009 $23
Thomas Block and Landcross Farm vineyards, McLaren Vale, South Australia

Yum. Very drinkable. And surprising for warm McLaren Vale, Paxton Tempranillo tastes ripe but weighs in at just 12 per cent alcohol – a rare feat in Australia. Our makers generally sweat on flavour ripeness as sugar levels (and hence potential alcohol levels) climb ever higher. David Paxton says the wine underwent extended maceration on skins to build structure and flavour. Maturation in older barrels gave mellowness but not obvious oak flavour. The style is medium bodied and soft featuring sweet but savoury berry flavours.

Innocent Bystander Pinot Gris 2010 $19
Yarra Valley, Victoria

Innocent Bystander’s latest pinot gris offers fresh and pure, if subtle, pear-like varietal character, backed by a fine, silky textural richness. This textural richness comes from maturation on yeast lees both in tank and in older oak barrels – executed so well that there’s no overt oakiness. Without the texture there might be little to the wine. But the combination of subtle flavour and rich texture add up to a very enjoyable drink. The grapes come from the cool upper Yarra Valley.

Terra a Terre Sauvignon Blanc 2010 $25
Wrattonbully, South Australia

Ah, no, not another bloody sauv blanc. Bloody cat’s pee. Whoa, hold on. Oh, ahhh, mmmm. Wow. This is Lucy Croser’s and Xavier Bizot’s Australian take on a sauvignon blanc style made by leading small makers in Sancerre, France. It’s barrel fermented and matured in a way that builds texture and body and mutes varietal exuberance while retaining an exciting acid-driven vivacity. Terre a Terre may mean down to earth. But this is heavenly stuff (for sauv blanc) from a daughter of Brian Croser (founder of Petaluma and Tapanappa) and a scion of France’s Bollinger family. These two have wine in the veins.

Is aerating wine just hot air

2 March 2011WineChris Shanahan

Does wine need air? Does it taste better if we shake it up in a glass, breathe the bottle, decant it or pour it through one of those new aerating pourers? The short answer is: do what works for you, because the experts disagree. And science now tells us that we’ll taste what we think we’re going to taste anyway.

In The Oxford Companion to Wine, Dr Richard Smart writes, “Another traditional but disputed reason for decanting is to promote aeration and therefore encourage the development of the wine’s bouquet. Authorities as scientifically respectable as Professor Emile Peynaud argue that this is oenologically indefensible: that the action of oxygen dissolved in a sound wine is usually detrimental and that the longer it is prolonged the more diffuse its aroma and the less marked its sensory attributes”.

So there. It’s settled. Let’s flog our decanters, aerating glasses and aerating pourers on eBay. Forget the mumbo jumbo. Open the bottle, pour and drink. Now. For Professor Peynaud it doesn’t get better than the first sip, direct from bottle to glass.

No, no, no counters one of the world’s biggest selling wine authors, Hugh Johnson. In Wine: A Life Uncorked, he pities poor Peynaud for what he missed. Johnson, a great wine romantic, routinely decants almost all the reds and whites he drinks. “People who leap to judgment on the first sniff are simply in too much of a hurry”, he concludes.

Johnson’s drinking mate, Michael Broadbent, Master of Wine, certainly isn’t in a hurry. Broadbent, writes Johnson, places a wristwatch beside his notebook – then times the rise and fall of a fine wine’s fragrance from the moment it’s decanted. Their shared belief that great wine needs air and time to reveal all couldn’t be further from Professor Peynaud’s position.

Wondering if there were any science to either position, I called the Australian Wine Research Institute. Communications manager, Rae Blair, said the institute had no material to offer.

However, sensory research manager, Leigh Frances, recalled an informal test conducted with a panel of wine experts. In a masked tasting they’d been served a range of wines, some decanted and some direct from the bottle.

With only one exception, the tasters couldn’t tell the difference between the decanted and non-decanted wines. The exception was a French wine, riddled with hydrogen sulphide (rotten egg gas). Aerating the wine dispersed the stench of this poorly made wine.

This takes us back to the original reason for decanting. When winemaking was a more hit or miss affair than it is today, wine often contained unpleasant volatile components, including hydrogen sulphide and sulphur dioxide. Decanting, or even leaving wine open for a time before serving, disperses these.

Hydrogen sulphide forms in a “reductive” environment – that is, in the absence of oxygen. It’s part and parcel of winemaking, especially in the dense cap of skins associated with red wine ferments. Winemakers introduce air during winemaking to disperse it.

The introduction of screw caps led winemakers to even greater vigilance against hydrogen sulphide. Because the screw cap creates a more reductive environment than cork, winemakers were forced to be even more attentive. As a result we enjoy cleaner wines.

However, tiny amounts can still appear in some wines, though whether or not we notice depends on our threshold for detecting it. Giving the wine a good splash, by whatever means, generally gets rid of it.

What other nasties might aeration remove? Almost all wines contain sulphur dioxide as a preservative. Again we all have different thresholds for detecting it, and a small minority of people are even allergic to it. Decanting won’t help allergic people. They simply have to seek preservative free wine.

Most people don’t detect the free sulphur dioxide in wine, mainly because our winemakers now measure the required dose fairly precisely. However, winemakers generally give white wines intended for long-term cellaring, notably top-shelf rieslings, more liberal doses. This slowly disperses from the bottle over time. But it can be an astringent element in very young wines. Again, a good splash into a decanter or jug or gurgle through an aerator generally solves the problem.

Decanting delivers one other clear benefit. But it has nothing to do with aeration. Very old red wines throw a harmless but bitter deposit. Decanting in this case simply separates clear wine from the sediment.

But what are the benefits of aeration and time seen by Hugh Johnson, Michael Broadbent and others. Are they all in the mind?

While no one can quantify the benefits, I’d say probably not. Aeration by whatever means probably reduces dissolved sulphur dioxide quickly – a source of irritation to those sensitive to it. It also disperses hydrogen sulphide, though this fault is now rare in Australian wine.

So that leaves the effect of exposure to air over time. This begins as soon as the bottle’s opened and continues as long as we’re drinking it, whether it’s decanted or run through an aerator or not.

For thirty years at Chateau Shanahan we’ve always tasted wines, sometimes decanted, sometimes not, over several days. We splash them into glasses; we refresh the glasses each day; we swirl the glasses; and the ratio of air to wine in the bottles increases daily. Air destroys some sooner than others.

We don’t time the rise and fall of bouquet. But we do see changes over time. The very best wines become more interesting, sometimes for several days. Big reds, in particular, seem to shed their tannic hardness and reveal more of their underlying fruit. Some initially appealing, fruity wines, on the other hand, collapse very quickly.

We’ve also noted in some delicate, aromatic wines that some lovely highnotes apparent on first opening disappear fairly quickly, even when the wine kicks on revealing other lovely flavours. So professor Peynaud has a point.

There’s nothing scientific in this approach. It’s simply enjoying the changing smells and flavours. And the better, longer lasting wines invariable give greater pleasure. We love decanters, too. What could be lovelier than red wine and candle light winking through cut crystal? The wine tastes good before it’s poured.

And if you’d like to see if those fancy aerators make a difference, there’s a simple, objective triangular taste test you can do. You’ll need a collaborator.

You need to give your collaborator three identical glasses, labelled ‘1’, ‘2’ and ‘3’, and one bottle of wine. Disappear from the room.

Your buddy now opens the bottle and pours direct from the bottle into one or two glasses; then pours through the aerator into the remaining glass or glasses. It doesn’t matter whether there’s one aerated and two non-aerated — it works either way. The important thing is that you don’t know. Your friend should note which glasses contain which wines.

You now return to the room and three three identical glasses, each filled to exactly the same level. Smell and taste the wines. If one wine smells or tastes different from the other two, then aeration is making a detectable difference; if not, it isn’t. You might like to try the test on a range of different wine styles as it might produce different results.

Whether you like the difference is another thing altogether and entirely subjective.

Cool summer dampens beer sales

2 March 2011BeerChris Shanahan

On February 15 Foster’s Group reported declining profit on the back of falling beer sales. CEO Ian Johnston attributed this partly to “unseasonal weather in peak consumption months”. We might call this seasonally adjusted profit.

As a lapsed retailer I can vouch for this phenomenon. In research to understand the effect of advertising on beer sales, Liquorland marketing department once discovered that sales rose and fell with the thermometer. Advertising merely redistributed the brand mix.

The seasonal blip noted by Foster’s comes on top of a long-term decline revealed in recent Australian Bureau of Statistics figures. The bureau says we now drink about 107 litres a person, well down on our peak of 176 litres almost forty years ago.

Despite the overall decline, though, premium beers, including imports, and those bland low-carbohydrate beers enjoyed double-digit growth in recent years.