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Reviews
Wine: a fresh look at Australian shiraz
Wine: a fresh look at Australian shiraz
Like Aussie chardonnay, the country's shiraz has something of an image problem. But a new breed of winemaker is now looking to change that
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Last week I took a look at Australian chardonnay. This week, in the second part of my update on the Aussie wine scene, I'm focusing on shiraz, which is similarly caricatured.
Judging by the wines that are widely available, that might surprise you. Less expensive Australian shiraz, particularly that from the Barossa, is much as it's always been: big, bold and, as the Aussies put it, "grunty". But there is now a trend to pick grapes earlier, resulting in less dense, extracted, more food-friendly wines. Two good examples that wear their 14% abv lightly are the delicious First Drop Mother's Milk Shiraz 2009 (£14.99, The Secret Cellar, Tunbridge Wells; £15.03, The Sampler, London SW7; £15.99,Cambridge Wine Merchants), from the Barossa, and Paxton's sumptuous AAA Shiraz/Grenache 2009 (£13.05, The Sampler), from McLaren Vale.
There's other shiraz, though, that you'd be hard pushed to identify as Australian, some of it yet to reach the UK. Names to look out for includeBattle of Bosworth, whose joyously fruit-brimmed 2011 Puritan Shiraz should arrive at Bibendum in a couple of months; Ngeringa, andCastagna, whose sensational, though pricey (£40), Genesis Syrah is sold by the Wine Society. There's also some great shiraz coming out of the Pemberton and Frankland river regions of Western Australia, such as the glorious 2009 Picardy Shiraz (£22, auswineonline.co.uk; 13.5% abv), from Margaret River pioneers Bill and Sandra Pannell – it's a wine that wouldn't leave côte rôtie fans feeling short-changed.
If you want to get your hands on wines from such smaller producers, however, you need to get in quick when they arrive. For that reason, it's worth getting on the mailing list of specialists such as auswineonline.co.uk and Oz Wines, which currently has a great Australian shiraz case of older and rarer bottlings for £199.99. You can also find a terrific selection at the award-winning Harrow at Little Bedwyn, Wiltshire.
There are also some good shiraz bargains around at the moment. The 2010 Oxford Landing Cabernet Shiraz(13% abv), for example, is on offer at £4.99 if you buy two or more bottles at Majestic; Penfolds' classicKoonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet 2008 (13.5% abv) is reduced to £6.98 at Asda, compared with £9 or £10 elsewhere; and the lush Peter Lehmann Portrait Series Barossa Shiraz 2009 (14.5% abv), colourfully described to me by the winemaker Andrew Wigan as "yummy shit", which is down to £7.95at Great Western Wine in Bath. You'd be hard-pushed to find better prices in Oz.
• For more Australian red recommendations, visit my website,matchingfoodandwine.com.
Photographs: Full Stop Photography
Wine: Australian chardonnay comes of age
Wine: Australian chardonnay comes of age
Yes, it's been a bit of a joke wine for years, but the new generation of Aussie chardonnays really hit the spot
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Would you take a bottle of Australian chardonnay to dinner with friends? My guess is many wouldn't – a friend recently told me it must have been 10 years since he'd drunk the stuff. The reason is simple: Aussie chardonnay used to be as sickly as tinned peaches pumped up with lashings of toasty oak. Cheap ones still are, but of all the wines that Australia produces, this one has undergone the most dazzling transformation, reminding us what a sexy, sumptuous, delicious wine chardonnay can be.
How to spot the new, more restrained style? In general, I'd avoid bottles labelled south-eastern Australia and look for ones from cooler regions such as Adelaide Hills, Margaret River, Mornington Peninsula and the Yarra Valley. The most affordable ones I've found that hit the spot were both from the Yarra: Yering Station's attractive Little Yering 2009 (13% abv), which Oddbins has under its "customer-recommended price" scheme at £8.50 (around £10 elsewhere; see wine-searcher.com), and Innocent Bystander's Willing Participant Chardonnay 2010 (£10.44waitrosewine.com, £10.99, Waitrose; 13% abv). The same producer makes a gloriously creamy single-vineyard chardonnay under the Giant Steps label, Sexton Vineyard 2009 (£16.99, Laithwaites; 13% abv)
From the Mornington Peninsula just outside Melbourne, try Kooyong's elegant, minerally Clonale Chardonnay 2010 (£17 Wine Society, £18.50 Great Western Wine; 13% abv), which knocks spots off many comparably priced burgundies. (It was the bottle we finished after the tasting, which is always telling.)
And from Western Australia I'd go for Flametree Margaret River Chardonnay 2009 (£20 from Aussie specialists auswineonline.co.uk; 13% abv), a richer, more opulent but still beautifully balanced chardonnay with great ageing potential – as have many of these wines, thanks to the fact they're all bottled under screwcap. I also loved Forest Hill Chardonnay 2010 (£18,auswineonline.co.uk; 14% abv), from Mount Barker, with its juicy, white nectarine fruit and crisp, citrussy finish.
Hefty prices? Yes, it's true they're expensive, but if you'd buy a bottle of champagne, meursault or indeed Cloudy Bay for a similar price, or if you spend £20 on a wine in a restaurant without blinking, you won't be short-changed. It's time to start taking Aussie chardonnay seriously.
• For a longer list of chardonnay recommendations check my websitematchingfoodandwine.com
Photographs: Full Stop Photography.
Picardy - Elegance from Western Australia
The wines of Picardy
Superbly elegant wines from Pemberton in Western Australia
Bill and Sandra Pannell were Margaret River pioneers, establishing Moss Wood back in 1969. They now own this small 5000 case winery in Pemberton, another region in Western Australia a bit further south (and thus cooler) than Margaret River. Here they make a stunning range of restrained, relatively elegant wines, with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay a key focus, but also with a superb Shiraz.
Everything with Picardy on the label comes from their vineyard, which they established in 1993, and the hand-picked grapes are vinified in the winery on the property. It’s rare to encounter a range as consistently good as this.
Represented in the UK by www.auswineonline.co.uk, whose prices per bottle are given in brackets after each note.
THE WINES
Picardy Shiraz 2009 Pemberton, Western Australia
Initially tight on opening, this really blossoms after about an hour. A really elegant, almost Pinot-like Shiraz with smooth, sweet fresh berry and cherry fruit on the nose. The palate is fresh and a bit grippy with some spicy notes. Restrained, fruit-driven and balanced, with a hint of meatiness and some iodine notes. Very stylish. 94/100 (£22)
Picardy Merlot/Cabernet Sauvignon/Cabernet Franc 2009 Pemberton, Western Australia
Elegant and supple with cherry and blackcurrant fruit on the nose, as well as a subtle chalky edge. The palate shows real elegance with super-refined berry fruits and a subtle, grainy, chalky, gravelly tannic structure. Very attractive and balanced with potential for development. 93/100 (£22)
Picardy Chardonnay 2009 Pemberton, Western Australia
Lively and intense with high acidity offsetting rich peach, pear and fig fruit. Pure and intense with spicy crystalline fruit quality. Textured and lively, this shows superb complexity and restrained richness. 93/100 (£24)
Picardy Pinot Noir 2009 Pemberton, Western Australia
Lovely bright red and black cherry fruit nose with a fresh green, sappy edge and real elegance. There’s ripeness and freshness at the same time, with some subtle warm, spicy, earthy notes. Sophisticated and ethereal and quite old world in style. It’s a tiny bit sweet and sour, but there’s lovely complexity here. Brilliant wine. 94/100 (£24)
Wines tasted 08/11
See also:
 The wines of Andrew Hoadley, Western Australia
The wines of Amelia Park, Margaret River
Visiting Margaret River, Western Australia (series)
Wines tasted 08/11
Matthew Jukes's Top 100 Australian wines 2010 list - Ocean Eight's, Verve Chardonnay '09
Top 100 Listing for Ocean Eight's, Verve Chardonnay '09
Matthew Jukes's Top 100 Australian wines 2010 list.
2009 Ocean Eight, Verve Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula, Vic £25
Serious Chardonnay does not need to rely on overt power nor should it have to lean on posh oak staves to garner plaudits. Verve is an example of a wine which does what it says on the label - it injects vigour and dynamism into a class of wines which is often too serious and lacking in momentum. Bright citrus fruit and punchy acidity make for very happy bedfellows, particularly when the results are as holistic and uplifting as this. We will see more from this newcomer in due course, but for now turn up the Verve.
We continue to source high quality, small production run, boutique wines, which are hand crafted by winemakers using minimal intervention methods to make their wines. La Ciornia and Verve are fine examples of this philosophy.
We will keep them coming.
Agent: Auswineonline, Stockist: www.auswineonline.co.uk, Thorold Wines, London, SW17 and Hanging Ditch, Manchester.
© Matthew Jukes and Quentin Johnson 2010
If you wish to view the full list it is available at www.matthewjukes.com
Matthew Jukes's Top 100 Australian wines 2010 list - La Violetta, La Ciornia '08
Top 100 Listing for La Ciornia '08
Matthew Jukes's Top 100 Australian wines 2010 list.
2008 La Ciornia, Shiraz, La Violetta, Denmark, WA £30
Apparently the word ‘ciornia’ means dark or black in Russian. In Piedmontese dialect, ciornia is a term for a very attractive woman. Winemaker Andrew Hoadley notes that it’s a pretty bad pun on Cornas, too. Either way these are superb reasons for calling this wine this word. When I first tasted La Violetta I was completely blindsided. I didn’t expect the pepperiness and certainly had no idea that a Shiraz from Denmark could have Pinot Noir tenderness under its malevolent, vampiric exterior. There is bugger all stock in the UK – but if you have read this note, I would expect that the vast majority of you (if you know/follow my palate) will do anything you possibly can to find a bottle.
We were delighted that it received such a full endorsement from Matthew.
Agent: Auswineonline, Stockist: www.auswineonline.co.uk, Thorold Wines, London, SW17 and Hanging Ditch, Manchester.
© Matthew Jukes and Quentin Johnson 2010
If you wish to view the full list it is available at www.matthewjukes.com
Harpers Wine & Spirit - Merchant's Taste
Wineanorak.com - A serious Aussie Chardonnay: Eldridge Estate
Australian Chardonnay doesn’t have a great image these days. But, as the Landmark Tutorial last year showed, it’s a serious category. Here’s a new wine to me, which I really rate. It’s from Eldridge Estate in the Morning Peninsula.
Eldridge Estate Chardonnay 2008 Mornington Peninsula, Australia
14% alcohol. Complex, powerful and intense with rich but balanced flavours of nuts, fig, peach and pear, as well as subtle toasty notes. Fruit dominated with real refinement and complexity. Wish it was a bit cheaper, but it’s worth it. 94/100 (UK retail £30, available at www.auswineonline.co.uk)
Wine Business Monthly - Eldridge Pinot Noir 08 review by Tyson Stelzer
 click image to zoom
The Wanderer: impressive Shiraz and Pinot from the Yarra Valley
Two very nice wines from a new (to me, at least) producer in the Yarra Valley, Andrew Marks’ The Wanderer. The story of Australian wine isn’t actually about big brands, over-ripeness and critter labels – it’s a country with many hundreds of good small producers, many of whom are making very interesting wines. Marks is a good example of a winegrower aiming at elegance and complexity, not power.
The Wanderer Pinot Noir 2008 Yarra Valley
13% alcohol. The first thing you notice about this wine is that it is a very pale cherry colour, Few Burgundians are brave enough to make Pinot Noir this light in colour, but Marks has been careful not to overextract, and with Pinot Noir, the pale ones are often the best. It’s made from a single vineyard site in the lower Yarra near Tarrawarra, and the fruit is destemmed but not crushed, leaving whole berries, which are cold soaked in open fermenters before inoculation and hand plunging. A third of the blend goes to new French oak; unfiltered and unfined. Subtle complex cherry fruit nose with some earthy, spicy notes. The palate is nicely textured with some smooth cherry fruit and subtle spice and earth characters. Nicely complex with real elegance. An understated wine with nice purity; it could develop nicely. 92/100 (£30 will be available from www.auswineonline.co.uk)
The Wanderer Shiraz 2008 Yarra Valley
From a 30 year old single-vineyard in Dixon’s Creek. Fermented in open fermenters with some stems. Aged in 20% new oak; neither fined nor filtered. Interesting stuff. Initially a little reduced on the nose, with some spicy, earthy notes in the background, but the dominant theme is sweet fruit with cherry and raspberry notes as well as lovely elegance and a smooth texture. Quite pure; like a very ripe, rich Pinot Noir. May develop in interesting ways. 92/100 (£30 will be available from www.auswineonline.co.uk)
South West - PERFECT PARTNERS?
PERFECT PARTNERS?
When I think about Australian-Italian connections, my mind isn’t  filled with names. A few half-decent footballers perhaps, despite the fact that there’s a fairly big Italian community Down Under.
When it comes to food and drink, however, these are two nations which share a number of similarities. Wine is an area of common consent, with both Italian and Australian vineyards producing vast quantities of the stuff, of varying degrees of quality.
Ransome’s Dock restaurant in Battersea hosted a ‘dinner with a difference’, in mid-October, where a series of Italian dishes, put together by TV celebrity chef Valentina Harris, were matched with superb boutique wines from Western Australia, sourced by Auswineonline.co.uk – the specialist Australian wine importers based in the UK. The event was a rampant success, with a packed crowd enjoying some very sensibly paired food and wine – all expertly prepared.
Dinner started with an aperitivo of bruschetta of broad bean puree with pecorino, accompanied by a glass of Flametree Sauvignon Blanc Semillon (2009), with its gooseberry freshness proving the perfect match.
The next course combined sweet scallops wrapped in pancetta, with the necessary acidity of a glass of Kalgan River Wines Riesling (2008). The “primo” course soon followed, “always the most important course in any Italian meal”, according to Harris. Here the Aussie representative was another white: a drop of Flametree Chardonnay (2007) which dealt with the powerful flavours presented by a stunning prawn risotto puttanesca.
After three whites, the ‘Austral-Italian’ alliance was tested with red wine, a main course of duck breast, potato and spinach was matched well (once more) with two reds – a Flametree Cabernet Merlot (2008) and a Flametree Frankland Shiraz (2008). Next up: the cheese. Three hard cheeses, an Asiago, Pecorino and Parmegiano, pairing nicely with its spicy Aussie partner, a Kalgan River Wines Shiraz Viognier (2007). Dessert concluded this Australian Italian love-in suitably successfully, with a sticky Talijancich 1961 Solero Bunet Muscat matching up perfectly with a soft orange and almond cake.
www.ransomesdock.co.uk; www.auswineonline.co.uk
This article was brought to you by
The Foodie List - Valentina’s Masterclass, Dinner Party With A Difference
Valentina Harris announced the launch of her new website “Valentina’s Masterclass” at a Dinner at Ransome’s Dock. Valentina Harris, author of some 20 plus books on Italian cookery, has teamed-up with www.auswineonline.co.uk to offer a new service a “dinner party with a difference”. You invite up to 8 of your friends to a “Valentina’s Masterclass” in your own home. Valentina provides the expertise and skills to teach you all how to make and enjoy the wonderful experience of home made pasta, risotto and original genuine Italian fish and meat dishes from scratch. Wonderful food accompanied by a selection of superb boutique Australian wines.
“the difference about these masterclasses is that as well as the culinary experience we combine Italian food with a selection of fine Australian boutique wines-a completely new angle on the delights of food and wine matching. You chose the menu with our guidance, matched with our stunning award winning Australian wines. We want to break the mould and get away from the standard fare, and try some different food & wine pairings. For example how about an aperitivo of “bruschetta of broad bean puree and pecorino” with a Flametree Sauvignon Blanc Semillon ’09, with its prominent gooseberry nose, and freshness or an antipasto pitted scallops wrapped in pancetta with a Kalgan River Wines Riesling ’08.
A Flametree Chardonnay ’07 could be matched with a full-on spicy prawn risotto puttanesca (with no pasta!) or a mian course of duck breast glazed with vinsanto, lemon potatoes and spinach matched with a Flametree Cabernet Merlot ’08, or a dessert of Bunet with soft orange and almond cake, and accompanied by a Talijancich 1961 Solero Muscat.
Valentina’s concluded with “I hope we have provided a glimpse of what can be achieved and destroyed some of the stereotypes and prejudices: old world food can work with new world wine”.
Food and wine matching could be heading in a new direction!
Evening events start at 7pm ending at 10.30pm and will cost £300 for a minimum of 6 people participating (only £50 per head). This Includes 6 bottles of Australian wines from Auswineonline and relevant tasting notes. More details at Valentina’s Masterclass
Mostly Food Journal- Valentina’s Masterclass, Dinner Party With A Difference
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VALENTINA’S MASTERCLASS –Dinner party with a difference
Valentina Harris announced the launch of her new website “Valentina’s Masterclass” www.valentinasmasterclass.co.uk at a Dinner at Ransome’s Dock. Valentina, author of some 20+ books on Italian cookery, has teamed-up with www.auswineonline.co.uk to offer this new service. Valentina and auswineonline are both based in London and have recently launched what is proving to be a very popular way to hold a “dinner party with a difference”. You invite up to 8 of your friends to a “Valentina’s Masterclass” in your own home. Valentina provides the expertise and skills to teach you all how to make and enjoy the wonderful experience of home made pasta, risotto and original genuine Italian fish and meat dishes from scratch. Wonderful food accompanied by a selection of superb boutique Australian wines.
Valentina commented “the difference about these masterclasses is that as well as the culinary experience we combine Italian food with a selection of fine Australian boutique wines-a completely new angle on the delights of food and wine matching. You chose the menu with our guidance, matched with our stunning award winning Australian wines”.
Gift vouchers for your friends and family are available. For larger groups of up to 25, there is a Central London venue available. These unique food & wine pairing events can be a great activity for team building and corporate entertainment.
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Jamie Goode - Two fantastic Syrahs from Great Southern
Two fantastic Syrahs from Great Southern
Great Southern is a region in Western Australia. As the name suggests, it's in the south of the state, and it's one of Australia's coolest wine regions. These two Syrahs are very cool-climate in style, and they're fantastic.
Both wines are made with fruit from the same vineyard by winemaker Andrew Hoadley. This is what he has to say about La Ciornia, which is under his personal wine label La Violetta:
'The inspiration for La Ciornia comes from my time spent working in Barbaresco in Piedmont 2002-2003. The local Piedmontese varieties (the well-known Nebbiolo, Barbera and Dolcetto, and obscurities such as Freisa, Grignolino, Pelaverga) encompass the extremes of red winemaking (in terms of site expression, colour, tannin, aromatics, acidity, using oxygen constructively, etc) so you need to think creatively and have a steady nerve to get the results. Also, being an important culinary centre, most often the focus is on how the wines will function in context with food - rather than aiming for maximum ripeness/fruitiness/extract. When I first came to Denmark and tasted the extraordinary 2007 Kalgan River shiraz in barrel, I immediately had the desire to get hold of some fruit from that vineyard and see what I could do with it, aiming for a slightly divergent style - a shiraz that my Piedmontese friends would love to drink - relatively strict and unadorned, expressing the vineyard character.'
Kalgan River Shiraz Viognier 2008 Great Southern, Western Australia
14.5% alcohol, hand-picked. Very fresh and peppery with vibrant dark cherry, raspberry and blackberry fruit, together with a savoury olive streak. This shows lovely peppery cool climate Syrah character, as well as having some rich fruitiness. Youthful, quite serious, with some structure. 92/100 (£16 auswineonline.co.uk)
La Violetta ‘La Ciornia’ Shiraz 2008 Great Southern, Western Australia
14% alcohol. Very fresh and bright: almost Burgundian in its style. Subtly meaty with sweet cherry and red berry fruit, as well as some restrained spicy notes. Quite rich, but overall more red fruits than black with good acidity and a peppery edge. Pure, primary and vibrant with brightness and freshness. I think this will be sensational in a few years (and would therefore get a higher rating), although it’s still impressive in this primary state. 91/100 (£23 auswineonline.co.uk)
Labels: Shiraz, syrah, western australia
Jamie Goode - Impressive Cab Merlot from Margaret River
MONDAY, AUGUST 17, 2009
Impressive Cab Merlot from Margaret River
 Continuing with the Aussie Cab theme, here's a really delicious Margaret River Cabernet Merlot from a producer I'd never heard of before. I suppose this is excusable: Flametree are new kids on the block, and the previous vintage of this wine was their first - it ended up winning the prestigious Jimmy Watson trophy. Flametree wines are being brought into the UK by new online retailer Auswineonline.co.uk.
Flametree Cabernet Merlot 2008 Margaret River
Vibrant aromatic nose with gravelly-edged sweet blackcurrant fruit, and some attractive floral notes. The fresh, bright palate shows sweet blackcurrant and stewed plum fruit with a hint of richness and more of that gravelly character. There's quite a bit of tannic structure here. It's a fresh, perfumed, midweight style with a lovely expressive personality. Very Margaret River in style. 91/100 (�12.50 http://www.auswineonline.co.uk/)
Labels: Australia, Cabernet Sauvignon, Margaret River
posted by Jamie @ 8:59 PM 6 comments links to this post
Estates Gazette - Glug Glug
Simon Woods, "First Taste"
First Taste August 2009 Week 1
Flametree and Kalgan River – two newcomers from Western Australia
My uncle, at the time a doctor in Bunbury, once sent us some a postcard of the whaling station at Albany in Western Australia – certainly made a change from Donald McGill’s plump ladies and skinny men, but I have to say it didn’t hang around on the mantelpiece for too long. Albany is also where one winemaker told me that he and his crew used to come fishing when they were able to take a decent break during vintage. ‘We used to sit there on the beach with a slab of beer just taking in the sun – shit, once we even caught a fish…’
And Albany is also the nearest town of any size to the Kalgan River winery in the Great Southern. Have to confess that I’ve never heard of it beforeauswineonline.co.uk asked if they could send me a few bottles to try. How could I say no? So here goes…
 
2008 Riesling (£11.50)
This is on the rich side of Aussie Riesling, quite full and almost tropical in style, with a touch of dolly mixture to the finish (a character I find in many Rieslings from the region). It feels just off-dry, but it also feels like one of those wines whose youthful plumpness and ripeness on first tasting masks some hidden depths. Plush peach and pineapple flavours are reined in with citrus acidity – wouldn’t be surprised to see this coming across as a drier wine in a couple of years, nor to see it still going strong five years beyond that. But lacks the bite and precision of the best Rieslings. B(+)
2008 Rosé (£11.50)
Made from Cabernet Sauvignon, and it has some of the leafy blackcurrant Cab notes on the nose. This is like the juice from a tin of strawberries, maybe with a dab of acidity to freshen it up, but again, it feels like there’s some RS (residual sugar) in there somewhere. Overall an easy drinking, undemanding pink. C+
2007 Cabernet Sauvignon (£12)
Rich, smoky style, with some leafy greenness in the background, but it’s herbal rather than herbaceous. It’s quite soft and lush in texture, with rounded blackcurrant and blackberry flavours, a tinge of mint/eucalyptus, and a finish that combines that leafy/tobacco edge with some warmer, ripe vanilla notes. Would prefer a little more grip perhaps, S-
2007 Shiraz Viognier (£16)
The Shiraz Viognier blend actually makes some sense in the cooler reaches of southern WA, as opposed to in some of the warmer parts of Oz, where adding blobby Viognier to already plump Shiraz is a bit like have cream AND custard. I think the here treatment has been overdone – this weighs in at 14.7% alcohol, why is there a need for Viognier in such a ripe wine? I get the perfume of Shiraz, but then this rather clunk ripe peachy edge intrudes and takes over. Will it mellow with time? Not sure, but I’m going to give it a few hours of benefit of the doubt… Well it’s evolved better than the Flametree Shiraz (see below) but I still have to question the wisdom of the Viognier. The fragrant herb and pepper edge is good; the rather simple peach melba edge not so good. B+
Flametree, Margaret River
Also from auswineonline, Flametree is another WA newbie to me – no surprise since the winery was only completed just in time for the 2007 vintages. But already it’s been included in James Halliday’s list of ‘Top 10 new Australian wineries’, with its 2007 Cabernet Merlot winning the coveted Jimmy Watson Trophy last year. And having just taken on major Bordeaux nut Cliff Royle, formerly of Voyager Estate, clearly this an estate going places. So just how good are the current releases?
 
2008 Sauvignon Blanc/Semillon (£10.50)
Typical catty green pepper nose, with the exuberant gooseberry of the Semillon rubbing shoulders with the citrus and pear pungency of the Semillon and creating seafood-friendly music. Have to confess it’s not a style I love, but this is better balanced and more rounded than most. B+
2007 Chardonnay (£12.50)
Quite classy modern Chardonnay, ripe but laid-back fruit, oak showing some toast but never turning to caricature, and rich but not too gloopy fruit. I’d like a little more citrussy grip, as there’s something that comes over a little fudge-like, but I’m going to give this a chance to calm down as the finish suggests it could improve… Later:- it’s still tasty, but hasn’t evolved into a stunna – but a nice drink all the same. S-
2008 Cabernet/Merlot (£12.50)
Showing lots of Tigger-like bounciness on first opening, with some greenness but also some wonderfully pure blackcurrant flesh too. Remember first coming across this flavour in Aussie wines some time in the late 1980s in a Cab from a Geelong winery called Mount Anakie – can’t remember tasting anything from there since, but it’s stuck in my memory. Don’t think the wines ever made it here, or I would probably have done an ‘Anakie in the UK’ piece… But back to the wine. It’s calming down by the minute, and that bounce is giving way to more subtle, supple flavours. With further time open, it doesn’t change all that much, but that pure blackcurrant edge is very attractive. S
2007 Shiraz, Frankland River
Interesting that they’ve chosen to do their Shiraz not from Margaret River but from Frankland. There’s a punchy peppery edge that bodes well, but then this massive sweet edge kicks in, not from actual sugar but from alcohol – streuth, it’s 15.6%! I thought such wines were now passé. So I’ll be very interested to see whether it calms down. Certainly on current form, it’s just OTT. Later… there’s still that pleasant peppery edge, but overall this is just too big for its own good, with the finish coming across as rather simple and jammy. B(+)
Something about Simon Wood's scores. I give medals, not marks. The scale from top to bottom runs as follows:-
- T (trophy) – I’d say this translated to 97-100
- G (gold) – or 92-96
- S (silver) – or 87-91
- B (bronze) – or 82-86
- C (commended) – or 77-81
- 0 (zero) – or 76 and below**
and I split these into five layers – S+, S(+), S, S(-) and S-, for example.
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