Red's Top 5 - 2010

It’s that time of year isn’t it. There are plenty of ‘best of’ lists for 2010 popping up, so I thought I’d do a little list of my own.

To clarify, my Top 5 consists only of wines that I have sat down and consumed over a couple of hours and sometimes over a couple of days, more often than not with food. I have tasted many wonderful wines at tastings this year, not least of which was the Langton’s Classification V tasting. However, I find mass tastings, or tastings where you only have a short period to assess the wine, an inherently fraught process, with the distinct possibility of overrating or underrating a wine. As such, wines tasted at wine tastings have not been considered.

So on to my Top 5. These are not necessarily my 5 highest rated wines (though they all have scored well), but more importantly they are wines that were genuinely memorable and enjoyable. In alphabetical order they are –


2007 Juniper Estate Cabernet Sauvignon (Margaret River) – 4.5 Stars – A beautifully complex Cabernet of impeccable structure that demands 10 years in the cellar. The 2008 should be one to look out for as well.


2005 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz (South Australia) – 4.5 Stars – This is a wine that ticks all the wrong boxes for some wine cognoscenti in that it’s

- a multi-regional blend
- from warm climate regions in South Australia
- made by Penfolds, who are owned by Fosters

For me however, it ticked all the right boxes in that it just tasted so good. Wonderful intensity on the palate and the best 389 I have tried from the noughties.


2006 PHI Pinot Noir (Yarra Valley) – 4.5 Stars – I’ve had plenty of very good Pinot this year, but this one brought home the bacon. Wonderful complexity with its lovely balance between sweet and savoury flavours. I'm looking forward to seeing how this wine shapes up from the brilliant 2010 vintage in the Yarra.


2007 SC Pannell Nebbiolo (Adelaide Hills) – 4 Stars + – One of my most passionate wine hopes is that Australia will discover regions and sites that consistently produce world-class Nebbiolo. This wine has me very optimistic that we are well on the way to doing this. If you haven't had much Nebbiolo, or find Barolo in Australia too expensive, then this wine is highly recommended.


2009 Teusner the Dog Strangler Mataro (Barossa Valley) – 4 Stars – The relative cheapie in this top 5 was beautiful to drink with its complex spice, and as a single variety Mataro provides interest to boot.


All in all, five quite different wines but all wines that at some point provided that moment of true sensory pleasure that is all encompassing and is what drinking wine is ultimately about.


Red