Royal Sydney Wine Show - 2011

Anyone who follows wine shows would realise that they come up with some strange results. I can partially understand this. Tasting in groups, in a very short period of time, and the inevitable palate fatigue that comes with tasting multiple wines, will inevitably lead to some slightly odd results. However, even accepting all that, the results I see each year at the Royal Sydney show are bizarre and generally at all odds with how the same wines are critically reviewed in other contexts. This year’s Royal Sydney Wine Show was true to form in this regard. Some less than impressive wines won Gold Medals and even trophies, while plenty of superb wine didn’t even merit a Bronze.

In any case I shouldn’t complain too much as the show affords me with an opportunity to taste an amazing range of quality Australian wine. Generally speaking I was most impressed with the Semillons and the Cabernets this year, with numerous wines showing beautifully.


Semillon

This was probably the one varietal where the Show results came close to approximating the quality of the actual wines. With a couple of different classes on show I was able to taste Semillons from 1999 through to 2010. The best examples have years ahead of them. Several vintages of Tyrrell’s Vat 1, Thomas Braemore, Meerea Park Alexander Munro, and Mount Pleasant Lovedale all impressed. I haven’t previously had many Lovedales, but tasting through a number of different vintages highlighted to me the outstanding pedigree of this vineyard and wine. It certainly tastes like it’s from somewhere, and the texture with this wine is lovely. It might be an expensive Hunter Semillon, but all things considered I think it warrants it.


Cabernet

The quality of Cabernet coming out of the Margaret River shone through here. Cape Mentelle, Voyager, Juniper Estate, and Vasse Felix all had several vintages of their premium Cabernet on show, and more or less across the board they presented beautifully. I’ve previously mentioned how much I was looking forward to trying the 08 and 09 Juniper Estate (http://redtobrownwinereview.blogspot.com/2010/10/juniper-estate.html), and this was my first taste of both, and there was certainly no let down. Both looked great. Quality, complex Cabernets. From 2007-2009 it’s pretty hard to go wrong with any of the above wineries. Of course many of these wonderful wines didn’t even warrant a bronze apparently.

Heading a bit further South down to Great Southern I tasted my wine of the day in the 2008 Houghton Jack Mann Cabernet. This wine actually got a deserved gold medal. It tasted like a Jack Mann and a very, very good Jack Mann at that. I found it hard to wipe the smile off my face as I tasted this wine. Power with restraint, a balance between the fruit and savoury flavours, tannic impact and great length. No spitting here. A wine to save your pennies for.

The other Cabernet I was very impressed by was the 08 Lindeman’s St George from the Coonawarra. A beautifully structured single vineyard wine with rippling tannin, I need a few of these for the cellar as well. It’s great to see the revival of this wine.

All up a great day of tasting. The trick is to ignore medals and instead focus on maker and vintage.



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Hawke's Bay Tasting - Spitbucket at Coast Restaurant

How to make Hawke’s Bay Cabernet sexy? A significant challenge for any marketer in Australia I would imagine. New Zealand and Pinot are somewhat synonymous and fashionable, but NZ and Cabernet are not. Moreover, Cabernet is positively uncool as a varietal in Australia at the moment. Pinot is trendy, Shiraz is ubiquitous, and everyone’s talking about the wonderful turnaround in Australian Chardonnay. In the Twitterverse there has been a Rose Revolution and a Summer of Riesling. However, Cabernet kind of sits outside a lot of the discourse about wine in Australia at the moment.

This is something I find a bit incongruous given I continually find Australian Cabernet as impressive as any other variety that we do, and indeed I’m as impressed with Hawke’s Bay Bordeaux blends as I am with any other red wines from New Zealand. However this doesn’t seem to be a view held by many and is seemingly well illustrated with the just released New Zealand wine liftout/magazine from Decanter magazine where Hawkes Bay Cabernet barely rates a mention. Fortunately Dan Coward (http://spitbuckets.wordpress.com/) and Poppy Greeson (http://www.coastrestaurant.com.au/) are not of this view and organised a great Hawke’s Bay tasting at Coast Restaurant in Sydney last week

The tasting started off with some Hawke’s Bay Syrah. There’s plenty of critical acclaim for these wines, but to be honest, apart from a couple of exceptions, I’m yet to be really impressed by their Syrah. This possibly reflects a bit of ambivalence on my part for cool-climate syrah. I often find a bitterness and/or stalkiness in these wines that doesn’t quite work for me. Funnily enough I don’t mind a bit of stalkiness and bitterness in my Pinot, but in Syrah it's rarely my thing.

We then moved on to the Bordeaux varietals at which point the interest and appeal of the wines increased and indeed found a crescendo with the final two wines of the night. All of a sudden I remembered what I love about Hawkes Bay. Beautifully balanced Bordeaux blends that are generally medium-bodied but that don’t lack for anything in terms of intensity and grip.

My favourite of the final two, and my wine of the night, was the 06 Newton Forrest Cornerstone Cabernet Blend. It had a complex, savoury bouquet that had an appealing whiff of varnish. On the palate it had a beautiful intensity of savoury flavours, lovely tannins, and a touch of leafiness. A quality Cabernet with just a bit of an X-factor to it.

The other wine was the 07 Trinity Hill The Gimblett, which for me was just a whisker behind the Cornerstone. It was in a richer, more fruit forward style, reflecting a greater Merlot component, but was of undoubted quality. Lovely blackcurrant and plum flavours, excellent quality oak, and nice tannins in support. It should age nicely.

Hawke’s Bay Bordeaux blends may be a bit of a tough sell at the moment, but I do hope the region continues to focus in this area, because to my mind it is one of the New World’s most impressive styles of wine.


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1998 Richmond Grove Watervale Riesling (Clare Valley) - Cellar Release

This wine is as good an advertisement for screwcaps as I’ve tasted.

James Halliday’s review of the wine back in 1998 gave the wine a score of 90 points and a drinking window until 2008. He described it as a “classic in the making which is quite certain to achieve significantly higher points when mature”. I’m not sure it has quite reached classic status, but time has indeed been good to this wine and its travelled well beyond 2008.

I tasted this at Glass in the Hilton Hotel in Sydney. I rarely care about the colour of a wine, but this Riesling had a beautiful bright golden hue. The nose was appealing, yet reasonably restrained with some toasty marmalade like notes, and just a whiff of petrol. On the palate the first thing that struck me was the vibrant acidity. It defines the wine beautifully. This acidity is balanced by developed, toasty, citrus flavours along with a touch of honey. Lovely drinking. The balance and structure of the wine suggests it could go on for another 5 years at least, though as it’s not a Riesling of amazing complexity I think it’s probably drinking at its mature peak now.

The thing that excites me is that this is typically a safe and sound Riesling that can be picked up for under $20 upon release, and hasn’t typically had any claims to greatness. And yet under screwcap it is showing beautifully at 13 years of age. What this means for many of the more premium Rieslings that have been under screwcap since the early to mid noughties will undoubtedly be a joy to uncover in the coming decade.

Rated:


RRP: $45
ABV: 12.5%
Website: www.richmondgrovewine.com


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2008 YarraLoch Stephanie's Dream Chardonnay (Yarra Valley)

There have been 96 point scores left, right, and centre for this wine, so I was pretty excited to try it. It’s from the 2008 vintage in the Yarra Valley, which was initially called by some as a bit of a heat affected vintage, but from which I’ve subsequently tasted plenty of fantastic wine.

Straight off the bat it had an expressive, complex nose of smoky, spicy, nutty grapefruit, with a touch of coconut cream. The palate, in contrast, is somewhat understated at present. It presents as refined and balanced with excellent length. There’s a touch of creaminess on the mid-palate and an appealing bit of bitter pith through the long finish. It’s a quality Chardonnay, no question, and yet it left me wanting more of something . . . weight, intensity, grip, not sure but it’s a sense I have with plenty of Oz Chardonnay at present. Is the quest for elegance resulting in a loss of character? The optimist in me hopes that these types of Chardys will blossom at about 5 years and beyond, at which point my quibbles will prove to be ill-founded. 4 Stars for now and “+” for a few years down the track.

Rated:
+

RRP:$45
ABV: 13%
Website: http://www.yarraloch.com.au/





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