Author Archives: Julian Coldrey

Mountain X Hunter Shiraz 2007

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13.2% alcohol by volume. Not 13%, not 13.5%; the precision of this advertised measurement makes a discreet point.

The qualities of this wine bring any shortcomings of its 2006 sibling into relief and, although a wine deserves to be evaluated on its own merits, I can’t help but make the comparison. The 2006 remains a beautiful wine, yet this improves on it in almost all respects and seems a remarkable progression from the first release. It’s a more mature wine, in the sense that it shows a level of stylistic coherence and poise not quite achieved before: the Pinot component more integrated with the whole, the oak’s expression quite different, the intensity and density of flavour better matched. As with the best wines, this shows as a whole, achieved piece. Of course, it has a fantastic Hunter vintage on its side, too.

Lacking the outré impact and wildness of its predecessor, this wine throws a much denser aroma from the glass. There are notes of black pepper, vibrant dark plum, brighter raspberry-like fruit, earthy minerality and some heady, whole bunch influences. I can’t really tell where the Pinot ends and the Shiraz begins, which I mean as the greatest compliment, as this suggests well-judged and executed blending. The aroma’s depth impresses me most of all, the kind of depth that indicates beautifully, completely ripened fruit. And somewhere in my mind, a figure of 13.2% hovers.

A firm, calm entry introduces the palate. Finely acidic, juicy flavours bubble up and begin to flood the mouth towards the middle palate. There’s an array of notes here, starting with an orange-juice-like flavour (!) and ending up at spicy black pepper, stopping on the way to pick a few wild blackberries and fall into a patch of dusty brambles. It’s at once bright, shapely, generous and firm, ushered along by a carpet of acidity and sweet tannins that seem to come from nowhere. There’s an edginess to the structure that hints some short term bottle age, at least, will be beneficial; not surprising considering this isn’t yet released. The wine seems an altogether less oak-driven style than the 2006, which creates less immediate plushness but, ironically, an impression of greater ageability. In terms of character, too, the oak is quite different, with no nougat in sight, in its place a rather more subtle sheen of sap and cedar. A notably long, sustained finish closes each mouthful on a high note. And still it hovers, the question of how such an obviously, joyously ripe Shiraz can clock in at 13.2% abv. There’s a touch of magic about this wine and, to apologists for the Hunter, perhaps a bit of quiet pride too. The point is well made.

Along with the Tyrrell’s 4 Acres, this is the most complete 2007 Hunter Shiraz I have tasted so far.

Mountain X
Price: $A30
Closure: Diam
Source: Sample

Wolf Blass White Label Chardonnay 2005

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First, provenance. I ended up with this bottle of wine (amongst others) courtesy of the Sydney Royal Wine Show, as a “thank you” for stewarding. The thing is, I can’t find out anything about it other than the fact that it won a silver medal at the 2008 Show. Nothing on the Wolf Blass website. So if you’re after some of this wine — sorry, can’t help you. Unless some of our readers (or the producer) can enlighten us all, of course.

It’s quite a tasty wine, though difficult too. The nose seems mostly influenced by winemaking rather than fruit — savoury mealiness, sweet vanilla oak, a touch of caramel. All pretty delicious if you don’t mind fruit flavours that take a complementary role in the overall profile. The fruit itself is lovely — white peach mostly — but oh-so subservient. Interestingly, this isn’t a totally juggy wine, and there’s enough of a funky thread to the aroma to present as challenging too.

In the mouth, some surprises. It’s not flabby at all, nicely propped up by acid in fact, and I am finding the fruit more prominent here than on the nose, at least initially. The attack is alive and crisp thanks to the acid, creating an impression of vibrant, fresh fruit, but this momentum isn’t maintained because the intensity of the fruit dips quickly as the wine moves towards the middle palate. It’s like a little explosion that disappears from view before you’ve finished taking in the effect. Is the fruit receding, or is the wine perhaps going through a stage? Who knows. Just as disappointment threatens to settle in, things pick up again on the after palate, though flavours here are more oak-driven. Classy oak, to be sure, but a bit blunt too. The finish slides into caramel and oat meal, and feels a bit hot to me.

Overall it seems a bit awkward and gangly, and it may be that I’m drinking it at a disadvantageous point in its trajectory.

Wolf Blass
Price: $A40
Closure: Cork

Mountain X Hunter Shiraz 2006

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Despite having published a series of turgid articles (1, 2, 3, 4) arguing precisely the opposite, I think there’s something deeply authentic about Australian wines that are a blend of material from several regions. For a start, many of our great winemakers (Roger Warren, Max Schubert, Maurice O’Shea and Colin Preece, for starters) often used this approach. It remains a part of our industry to this day, arguably representing the mainstream.

The intent is often to create a better wine than can be crafted from any one constituent component. For example, I’ve read that Colin Preece used to sometimes include some rich, ripe Rutherglen red in his elegantly spicy Great Western material to create a superior end result. There are many such examples, Grange being the most obvious and enduring. So one could pursuasively argue that a multi-regional blend vibrates with the sort of authenticity that can’t be achieved by simply doing it the way they do in, say, Burgundy. Perhaps this is the Australian way.

Is this even important? Surely, what’s in the glass is all that matters. Well, yes and no; to me at any rate. I’m not of the “wine is just a drink” school. I believe intent matters. And I think the degree to which a wine engages (or disengages) from a certain winemaking tradition should be considered. None of that changes what’s in the bottle, but wine exists in a context and, when I taste it, the purely sensual experience intersects all these things.

Perhaps I should apologise to the creators of this wine, Gary Walsh and Campbell Mattinson, for not getting straight to the point. But, in a sense, this is the point. Well-known wine writers, Messrs Walsh and Mattinson have ostensibly created the Mountain X label not only to produce something very tasty, but to explicitly draw on various Australian winemaking traditions.

This may be the first seriously postmodern wine that I’m aware of, at least locally. The name recalls O’Shea’s naming conventions. It’s a blend of Hunter Valley and Yarra Valley wine. And it’s a blend of Shiraz and Pinot Noir varieties. Hardly anyone does Shiraz/Pinot blends any more; it’s certifiably niche, and yet fits naturally into the history of the Hunter Valley. Even the outdated nomenclature of Hunter Burgundy suggests it. So neat on so many levels.

Indeed, the conceptual side would threaten to overwhelm the wine if it weren’t deliciously, obviously good. And it’s so good, fully justifying its existence to those who just want to drink a quality wine. The nose for starters. First impressions are of expressively funky brambles and stalk, fully ripe and strongly suggestive of the Pinot component. There’s also what I presume is an oak influence, sweetly malty and nougat-like, not too assertive in volume or aggressive in flavour. Then, some mellow berry fruit, straddling sweet and savoury. This is such a relaxed aroma profile, one that gently glows in the glass and calls you back not with a shout but with a sweetly harmonised tune.

This quiet sophistication carries through to the palate. All the obvious markers of quality are here — intensity, length, complex flavour — as they are in thousands of other wines. What’s fascinating about this wine is the flavour profile. As with the nose, it’s quite funky but not in a dirty way. In fact, this wine is a great example of how to achieve character without resorting to questionable flavours. I’m not sure I can tease it apart, but I’ll give it a go. A strong thread of sour cherry. A small amount of intensely sweet, positively confectionery fruit (sort of like Redskins, but of course in a clever adult sort of way). Brambles. Nougat. I’m not sure I’m communicating things accurately (or completely, as it’s quite complex) but suffice it to say it’s coherent and attractive. Structurally, this is acid-driven, though delicately so, such that it’s not forbidding in any way. Body is medium, with a sprightly mouthfeel that also manages to feel luxurious. The finish echoes the very beginning, with ripe, stalk-like flavours freshening the palate as sweet fruit lingers like an echo somewhere up high.

Performance art in a bottle. Serve it to non-wine nerds and enjoy both the wine and a quietly smug chuckle.

Mountain X
Price: $A30
Closure: Diam
Source: Sample

Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier 2005

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What a few days it has been — a busy schedule combined with the sort of low-level cold that is mind altering in an irritatingly subtle manner. It’s one thing to be demonstrably ill, each messy blow of the nose fully justifying the most outrageous self-pity and prompting those wonderful moments of over-the-top affection from one’s partner. The curse of the slight cold, however, is to want to complain knowing no-one will take you seriously. It’s also to taste wine (as I did last night) and realise that you have a totally screwed palate. Hence no tasting notes.

Tonight’s a completely different story, though. I’m as fit as a fiddle (well, I could lose a few kilos but let’s not get hung up on details after surviving a vicious sniffle) and things are again tasting of themselves. I remember this wine created quite a stir on release. It was as Bin 389 is to Grange — a way to get a good hit of Canberra Shiraz Viognier goodness without shelling out for Clonakilla’s top drop. I enjoyed it a good deal on release, but this is the first time I’ve tried it in a while.

Offcuts

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Friends for dinner and, consequently, a few bottles consumed. We ended up having a nice range of wines through the evening, the most interesting of which are briefly elaborated below.

The 2007 Tiefenbrunner Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige is a straightforward, refreshing white that continues the grand tradition of wines made from this grape by largely bypassing things like intensity and flavour. I’m being unfair — it’s actually very easy to throw back and drinks much like the Aligoté we had next; it is crisp, texturally pleasing and just weighty enough, with a hint of pear fruit. Sometimes, oodles of flavour isn’t the point.
The 2002 Arras Chardonnay Pinot Noir, by contrast, is all about complex, powerful flavour. This is just a lovely sparking wine, quite forthright in style but without the fruity vulgarity that sometimes characterises local sparklers. There are all sorts of things going on here — freshly baked croissants, savoury lees flavours and very crisp fruit, all wrapped in a relatively weighty package that nevertheless communicates a pristine sense of structure and flow. Delicious. Was sad to see the bottle end.
We jumped to reds at this point and worked our way through a nice village red Burgundy. The 2005 Domaine du Prieuré Savigny-les-Beaune Vielles Vignes is an easygoing Burgundy style, quite fruit driven but with some savoury elements to the flavour profile that add some sophistication. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to this wine, I must admit, but in a way that’s a great compliment — by this time, I was tucking into a meal of roast pork and the wine simply served to enhance the experience.

Ramblings: Max Lake's Folly

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Tonight, after news of Max Lake’s passing, no other wine would do but a Lake’s Folly Cabernet. And so I have a glass of the 2006 in front of me, richly regional and lip-smackingly delicious.

Truly creative people are frequently driven to publically, exhibitionistically realise their vision — not so much out of pure ego as out of a strongly held conviction that what they have to say is worth saying. The monuments that result can be sublime, grotesque, revelatory or ridiculous, depending on your point of view. But as time marches on, a canon forms, constantly evaluated and re-evaluated, challenged and affirmed. This hierarchy born of informed consensus validates the artist’s drive, and transforms an artefact into a standard against which other contenders are judged.

And so it is with Max Lake’s vinous legacy. Anyone who has taken the time to read his books can be in no doubt as to the passion he felt in matters of sensual pleasure, nor in the confidently expressed perspective from which his work sprang. I see Lake’s Folly as an integral part of Mr Lake’s oeuvre, as expressive and intellectual an artifact as his written works. Lake’s Folly wines are often discussed in terms separate from the mainstream of Hunter wine, and yet his Cabernet and Chardonnay are glorious exceptions that prove the two Hunter rules of Shiraz and Semillon. By being different, and successful, Lake’s Folly wines have carved a niche for themselves but also, ironically, have reinforced the Hunter’s classic styles. So Mr Lake’s belief both in the Hunter and in Cabernet are truly vindicated.

It is widely suggested that Lake’s Folly had a huge impact on the Australian industry. I’ve no doubt this is the case. For me, though, it’s about what I have in my glass tonight: Max Lake’s vision mediated via the (not to be underestimated) care and attention of Rodney Kempe. This is a beautiful expression of what wine should be. There’s nothing wishy-washy about its style or the intent behind its creation. That a wine can be simultaneously coveted, detested, discussed and dismissed speaks to its integrity. Tonight, I’m thinking about what wine in Australia might have been without Max Lake, and what it might be without him now. Surely, a glass of Lake’s Folly red is my only consolation.

B3 Barossa Semillon 2006

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This is the latest wine to take part in what I fondly refer to as my ongoing “neighbourhood Chinese takeaway wine matching” experiment. One of life’s little pleasures.

Really typical Barossa Semillon aroma, showing quite fleshy fruit notes of citrus and perhaps pear, plus some composting hay and a hint of honeyed age. The aroma profile is relatively thick and even, if not hugely expressive. In the mouth, a lot more forward, thanks partly to an acid structure especially well balanced for approachability. The acid is very fine and even, delivering good impact without being forbidding. A big wash of flavour starts right at the tip of the tongue and widens out towards the middle palate. This is a relatively weighty wine, and its structure, whilst present, is counterbalanced by a juicy mouthfeel that’s all about flavoursome drinking. There are definite indications of bottle age, and these nascent flavours add some complexity to primary flavours of citrus, sweet hay and soap. The overall effect is vividly autumnal and recalls slowly decomposing leaves. It’s also a bit rustic and unrefined, in the best possible way.

Barossa Semillon is quite a different beast from Hunter, and I often choose the former for more immediate gratification and a less intellectual drinking experience. This wine isn’t as full-on as some Barossas can be, with no discernable oak influence and little in the way of winemaking artifact. It’s also fresh-tasting within the context of the style, neatly avoiding vinous obesity. It could probably be a bit tighter but I kind of like its easygoing nature. A delicious and straightforward wine that would go well as a picnic quaffer. Not bad with the Chinese either.