Monthly Archives: July 2009

Mount Langi Ghiran Cliff Edge Shiraz 2005

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Bit of a Grampians-fest here at Full Pour lately, and why not? Long renowned for quality wine,  and apart from a couple of high flying labels, this historic region seems to sit under the radar and the total number of producers remains low. 

A forthright nose of ripe plums, cherries and not just a pinch but a whole market of exotic spices. The spiciness here is striking and, it seems to me, very regional. It’s quite a dark aroma profile overall, robust too, so words like “heady” spring to mind rather than “elegant.” There’s something to be said for impact, though, and this certainly has punch.
The entry is explosively satisfying, confirming the nose’s character with up-front flavour and substantial palate weight. This really is quite in-your-face, in a good way, with notes of incense, cedar oak, plum jam and other dark fruits intermingling on the mid-palate. Good drive through the mouth, with the after palate lightening a shade, showing less spice and more fresh fruit flavours. A tantalising, lingering finish, riding a velvet carpet of fine tannins.
This is an exceptionally flavoursome wine; not the last word in refinement, but generous and quite delicious. This is the sort of wine that I love, because it’s so true to its region and hence sacrifices none of its essential character, even though it is (nominally) a second tier label. 
As an aside, I do like Mount Langi Ghiran’s classy, strong branding. Nice work.

Mount Langi Ghiran
Price: $A21.85
Closure: Stelvin

El Coto Crianza 2004

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I haven’t taken the time to explore much Spanish wine, but it’s fair to say the Iberian peninsula is so hot right now. This, incidentally, is typical of my (in)ability to be ahead of the curve. No matter, if you are like me and are a novice in this area, I can highly recommend Dave Worthington’s excellent site Tinto y Blanco.

This evening, I was at my local First Murphy on an emergency wine run (triggered by those moments where nothing in the cellar looks remotely appealing) and decided to buy a few cheap Spanish bottles. Here’s the first, an inexpensive Tempranillo-based wine from a vintage officially rated “excellent” by the Rioja Control Board. 
A fun, moderately expressive nose of savoury red fruits, brown spices and a a nice thread of funky undergrowth. Some sweet oak too. I find it attractive, if straightforward.  It’s not an aroma that grabs you by the scruff of the neck; rather, it persuasively suggests you start thinking about what food to have with what you’re about to taste. The palate is sweeter than expected, with fresh red fruit and sweet oak the dominant characters. There are also some complexities; aniseed-like spice, for example, along with a general undercurrent of savouriness that keeps the fruit and oak in check. A really appealing, easy flow through the mouth, with acid and tannin balanced to create the sort of breezy sophistication you don’t quite recognise until it’s over. A dip through the spicy after palate never quite redeems itself on the finish, mostly because it doesn’t have enough time. 
There’s a lot to like here and all I can think about while drinking it are the various foods that might go with. Spicy sausage, I reckon. 

El Coto
Price: $A21.85
Closure: Cork

O'Shea Scarborough "Desolation" Champoux Vineyard Chardonnay 2007

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I bought this wine without knowing that it would come in a bizarrely shaped bottle with a fancypants smudge of black wax atop the cork – oh, and the label itself looks like it was printed (or is that prynted?) at a Renaissance Fayre. Ugh. I guess twee is really in these days, but I digress…Anyhow: on to the wine. The color is a dead ringer for pear cider or clarified pear juice (at least the kind found in Eastern European markets here in San Diego). Again – I don’t know why I feel compelled to mention this, but here goes – it’s super bright, buffed to an otherworldly sheen. You know, would it hurt anyone to release a white wine that has a little bit of optic heft to it?The nose has what I personally find to be that smell you get when you buy wines from new, boutique wineries that are trying to make a mark on the wine market by releasing things in ridiculously small numbers, most of which are from lieux-dits and feature ecology-be-damned murder-weapon-heavy glass bottles, hand-printed labels, wax, serial numbers, and everything else you’d expect in an expensive wine – or, rather, a wine that looks expensive regardless of whether or not it is. These bottles often seem to go hand in hand with a certain vapid nose that smells of amateur winemaking, low yields, high sugars, and a certain amount of indifference. For me, this is a dead ringer for Marie Callender’s lemon chiffon pie: it’s lemony, kind of chemical, and not especially attractive. If you are however into gobs of fruit, gobs of hedonistic fruit, or gobs of jammy, hedonistic fruit, then this just might be your thing. There’s also a hint of a matchstick note that isn’t altogether integrated into the rest of it; letting down my guard and being less of a jerk about it (I know, one should never be swayed by packaging alone, but there you go) there’s also a subtle nuttiness here, sometimes reminiscent of boiled peanuts from a Georgia roadside stand, sometimes more elegant than that.Wildly zingy and acidic at first, the acid drains off to reveal a strangely flat midpalate that is remarkably similar to lemon curd; there’s an interesting texture here that reminds me of partially cooked noodles – if you’ve ever bought fresh noodles and eaten one, you get an almost mealy effect which this wine suggests, at least to me. The finish ticks upwards and once again shows the sprightly acidity to great effect, and the length is quite good – which is kind of a shame as it tastes mostly of that same cheap lemon pie that I described earlier. Strangest of all, the acidity seems to die down very quickly and then the wine seems to sit back, undo its belt, and really allow its girth to overflow its Sansabelt: it turns kind of broad, flabby, messy, and still that acidity keeps jumping out at you like a Juggalo at Wal-Mart. It’s not entirely unexpected but decidedly unwelcome.Come to think of it, it’s possible that U2 may well have been thinking of this wine when they wrote ‘Lemon’:These are the days
When our work has come asunder
These are the days
when we look for something otherI, too, wish that I had looked for something other. Although I love Washington wines and know that wines from the Champoux Vineyard show enormous potential, I really do feel that something’s gone wrong along the way here. My guess is that the winemakers wanted to make a Chablis – but forgot that Washington is a relatively warm climate for grapes and as a result is probably better suited to making something like a Kistler. My recommendation: don’t fear new oak, lees stirring, and malolactic fermentation. Let love in. Your grapes are too good and too ripe to pretend to be Chablis.O’Shea Scarborough
Price: $25
Closure: Cork

Woodlands Margaret Reserve Cabernet Merlot Malbec 2007

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Criticism is one of those things that can be as hard to pin down as the object being critiqued. I look at, say, writing on film through the twentieth century and it seems to trace a path from James Agee to Cahiers du Cinéma, then from Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris to… Roger Ebert. In other words, from interdisciplinary critics with an awesome sense of cultural perspective, to an explosive bunch of enthusiasts turned filmmakers intent on discussing film in new ways, to a few iconic, fiercely intellectual writers with hugely influential views on cinema to… thumbs up, thumbs down.

So my narrative is deliberately misleading, as I’m sure there has always existed a plebian form of criticism the purpose of which is mostly to act as a guide for consumers, and that’s ok. There’s a place for it, and I admit that I read Roger Ebert (he worked with Russ Meyer, after all). But as a film nut, I reach for Kael, or Sarris, or the few contemporary icons like Paglia to get my critical thrills. And there seems to me a dearth of writers at the moment who work within an intellectual framework accessible to those without University educations in French Theory (apologies to those readers, and I know you’re out there, with University educations in French Theory) yet whose intent is to progress the conversation on film, rather than to make undemocratic calls on what is worth seeing and what isn’t. And, further, this causes me to wonder whether something like wine, an agricultural product (albeit a rarified one), ought to be discussed in the same manner. It rarely is, and I’d answer immediately “no” based purely on the simplicity of the object, except it goes against my instinct to reduce something created with such deliberate intent, even if from basic raw materials, to equally basic critical terms.

Clearly because I have too much time on my hands, I was wondering about this as I opened the 07 Woodlands Margaret. I’ve read a few reviews of it and they have ranged from utter raves to more measured praise. I wondered on what side I’d fall. Would I love the wine and tell my long suffering readers all about it? Or would I be vaguely disappointed, forced into wondering how I might express this disappointment without being obnoxiously presumptous regarding my own discernment?

Neither, as it turns out, because what interests me about this wine are notions of style, which are perhaps the most subjective, problematic aspects of wine, and consequently the most interesting to me. Wines like this demand to be discussed in critical terms far removed from thumbs up, thumbs down. In an acknowledged good (perhaps great) vintage in Margaret River, producers might no doubt take their pick of how to approach their winemaking. So, it’s especially provocative to taste a wine like this which is determinedly light and delicate, perhaps even marginal in terms of weight and ripeness. It’s almost outrageously aromatic, and as such it is appealing, but the aroma profile is so gamine that calling the wine sexy feels like a form of vinous paedophilia. Very high toned aromas of cedar, gravel, red fruits, bubble gum and flowers. A very slight green edge that seems half varietal and half unripe.

The palate starts in fine form with a nice rush of oak and floral fruit. Light to medium bodied; at least, it appears it will pan out that way until the middle palate seems to die a little death just as you’re wanting to experience petit mort. Even lots of swirling can’t coax much additional substance from the wine, so I’ll need to be satisfied with a marginal sense of dissatisfaction as I taste complex fruit flavours with a nice jammy edge (the Malbec, perhaps?). There’s plenty of acid and very fine, drying tannins so, structurally, we’re in fine territory. Nice long, light, delicate finish.

I’ve no doubt this is the wine that was intended to be made, so drinking it isn’t so much a question of evaluating achievement as it is challenging one’s concept of what Margaret River Cabernet should be. It’s so lean and etched, one can’t help but admire the detail. It reminds me of Kate Moss when she first hit the scene; impossibly thin, with the most beautiful bone structure, yet ethereal to the point of appearing sickly. I wonder if resonant beauty, the sort that makes you fearful and lusty at the same time, needs a bit more flesh on its bones?

Woodlands
Price: $A36.50
Closure: Stelvin