2008 Yelland & Papps Old Vine Grenache (Devote Range) RRP $32 (Sample)

It is no secret that RedtoBrown is a fan of this winery. In a short space of time, Yelland & Papps have developed a reputation for consistency, regardless of vintage conditions. Given the relatively small size of the winery, Susan and Michael Papps add a very personal touch to their wines. Based on the quality of the 2008 Old Vine Grenache (in my view their signature wine), they have achieved success with what was arguably the most difficult vintage for several years.

The Old Vine Grenache is a single vineyard wine made from dry grown vines planted in the early 1960’s in the Greenock sub-region of the Barossa Valley. It has spent 20 months maturing in old French oak, and as is the case with all of the Yelland & Papps Devote range of premium wines, is bottled unfiltered.

In the glass the Old Vine Grenache has an attractive bright warm crimson colour, and there are scents of strawberry, vanilla musk and some soft sweet spice. It is a medium to light bodied wine, with raspberry, a bit of cherry and red fruit from the front to the back palate with a touch of subtle spice also throughout. The tannins are fine, soft and ripe, yet with some nice grip at the end. It finishes dry and with more pronounced spice.

What I love most is its focused line and length, relative elegance and the level of restraint Yelland & Papps have managed to achieve. The old oak is in the background, the structure or ‘architecture’ of the wine is rock solid, and there is none of the sweet flabbiness that is often associated with Australian warm climate Grenache. The acid is balanced nicely with the fruit, suggesting that as with the 2007 Old Vine Grenache, the 2008 model will also age well and gain some very nice tertiary characteristics in the cellar.

The 2008 vintage in the Barossa saw early ripening in January (as a result of the drought / lack of rain) and an unbroken two week heat wave in March. With this in mind, I have to say it is a relief to taste a 2008 Barossa Grenache made in this style; it says a lot about how the winemaker can mitigate the impact of the adverse vintage conditions Mother Nature sometimes throws at you (through careful selection of fruit and other winemaking techniques). RedtoBrown will be reviewing the remainder of the Devote range of wines from the 2008 vintage in upcoming weeks.

For me, the result is a wine that does not display any obvious over-ripeness of fruit, nor overt alcohol warmth on the finish (as can be the case with some warm climate Australian Grenache). All in all the Old Vine Grenache is a comparatively elegant, restrained and age worthy example of the variety – a wine that Yelland & Papps should be proud of.

Details:
14.5% ABV
RRP:$32
Release Date: May 2010
Winery Website: http://yellandandpapps.com/home.html

Footnote: New Yelland & Papps Winery
Yelland & Papps have also recently gone from a virtual winery to a bricks and mortar winery, moving to Lot 501 Nuriap Road, Nurioopta. We look forward to seeing how the winery develops over upcoming vintages with an established home and added flexibility of estate vineyards.

2006 Rosby Shiraz – Mudgee - $16 (cellar door)

Rosby was a winery that I hadn’t heard of before I visited Mudgee last weekend. It’s now a winery that I think I’ll be following with interest.

It's a bit off the beaten track. Whereas most of the vineyards and wineries in Mudgee are visible from the main roads, Rosby is a hidden away single vineyard at the end of a long-dirt track in an undulating part of Mudgee. A 15 acre single vineyard on a gentle slope containing Shiraz and Cab Sav, in a picturesque setting. It sounds great, looks great, and importantly there is the substance to support it.

There are two unique things about this vineyard that distinguish it. Firstly the vines are planted on a red basalt soil that is different from any of the surrounding soils. It’s a soil in which the vines have to struggle. Secondly, at 530 metres in elevation it is about 100 metres higher than most other vineyards in the region, giving it a cooler aspect throughout the year. The vineyard yields 2 tonnes per acre.

The result is a medium-bodied shiraz of balance that has lovely ripe fruit. It has a distinctive nose of plum, a gentle earthiness, and a hint of chocolate. It is smooth and tasty with the same flavours carrying down the palate with decent length and gentle tannins. It’s a highly enjoyable wine and at the price, superb value. You could cellar it for a few more years if you wanted to though I think it’s drinking very nicely right now. Their other wine from the vineyard is the Cab Sav and I think that this is an even better wine. I’ll be reviewing this soon.

With the vines only being 15 years old and the vineyard moving towards organic management, the best is certainly yet to come with Rosby.


Red

Mudgee Matters . . .

I’ve just spent a couple of days with the missus in Mudgee and I’m excited about wine from this region.

It was the first time I’ve been there, and as well as being a lovely place to spend a weekend, it’s also a pretty wine region of largely small, family owned wineries, largely concentrated just to the north of the town of Mudgee.

The interesting thing is that it's well and truly off the radar. It doesn’t receive much press. Its wines don’t get reviewed as much as other NSW wine regions, and the wines are even hard to find in Sydney. If there was any city where you’d expect there to be a bit of a presence it would be in Australia’s biggest city, being only 3 and a half hours away, and yet I reckon you’d struggle to find a single bottle of Mudgee wine in plenty of Sydney bottle shops. The other issue with the region is that it’s not entirely clear which grape variety it does best. Most other wine regions are synonymous with particular varieties (Hunter = Shiraz & Semillon, Orange = Chardonnay etc.), but with Mudgee is it Shiraz, is it Cabernet, or is it an Italian variety?

Well, after a couple of days there, I have a much better appreciation for the wine of the region. While I don’t think the point should be laboured, Mudgee’s climate does have some similarities to Tuscany. It’s continental, with warm days and cool nights, in an undulating region, with vineyards generally at about 400-500 metres above sea level. The validity in the comparison comes because I think that the region’s two best varieties are Cabernet Sauvignon and Sangiovese (with some decent Merlot as well). I think there is some complex, age worthy Cabernet being produced. Much of the Sangiovese I tried was varietal and of genuine quality. Finally a few of the Merlots I tried had tannin and structure and therefore were a step up from the average Aussie Merlot.

When drinking a Mudgee red you can expect some earthiness along with a hint of chocolate. The majority of the reds that I tried (regardless of the variety) had a very appealing earthiness on the nose. You might be thinking this sounds a bit similar to the Hunter, but it is discernibly different (though I would struggle to articulate exactly why Mudgee’s earthiness is different from the Hunter’s!). There also tends to be a lovely hint of chocolate with many Mudgee reds.

In terms of vintages, 2005 and 2006 were excellent and there are still plenty of 2006 reds available at the cellar doors or by mail order. 2007 and 2008 were tough, though depending on the variety and vineyard location and management, there were still plenty of successes. I tried some excellent wines from both vintages. 2009 is looking very good, though is perhaps too early to tell. 2010 was tough again, with rain coming at the wrong time. Happily, when talking to winemakers and people working at the cellar doors, they are more than open and honest about the difficulties of various vintages. This is refreshing when compared to other regions/wineries where you’ll get the spin about the “vintage of the century”, or the dud vintage that is talked up as being good.

The reason I’m excited about the region’s wines, is not only because I’ve found a new (for me) wine region whose wines I like, but because as with many wine regions around Australia I think the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come because the judicious use of oak is on the increase. The best is yet to come because better clones of certain varieties are now being used. The best is yet to come because increasingly the right varieties are being planted in the right locations. Finally, a lot of the vines, particularly with the Sangiovese, are still relatively young, so you can expect the quality to continue to improve as the vines age. If Mudgee can have some luck in terms of weather conditions in upcoming vintages I think there will be some wonderful wines produced.

With limited time I probably didn’t even get to half the wineries in Mudgee that I would have liked to, but the wineries I went to that I really enjoyed included Rosby, Lowe, Huntington, Di Lusso, and Robert Stein. I’ll be reviewing some of their wines in the coming weeks . . .


Red

2006 Tahbilk Shiraz – Nagambie Lakes - $15 (Retail)

Last year, Brown and I consumed a 1991 Tahbilk Shiraz. It was one of my most memorable wines of the year. Part of the wine’s appeal on that evening was the fact that it was still drinking well. At 19 years of age, and under cork, I had doubts as to what would be revealed once the cork was popped. Would it be past it, would it be corked? Happily it revealed itself as a beautiful, aged Shiraz. From that point onwards I resolved to buy at least a few bottles of this wine each vintage. At $15 a bottle it’s one of Australia’s best value, cellar worthy reds. Onto the 2006 . . .

This was a wine that just got better and better the more it breathed. Initially all I could really say for the nose was that it had a deep aroma of dark fruits and some nice oak. It evolved beautifully and I gradually picked up berry and plum fruits, some earthy/leathery characteristics, and just a hint of eucalypt. The palate was nicely balanced between sumptuous fruit at the front, and lovely savoury flavours on the finish. It had nice length, drying tannins, and a persistence of flavour.

A beautiful wine that is just going to get better with age. I’d be leaving this for 10 years, and I reckon it would be worth leaving at least one bottle in the cellar for a 20 year stint. Based on the quality of this wine, along with its pedigree, I reckon it will go the distance, and happily, being under screwcap now, you won’t have to fret about the vagaries of cork!


Red