Category Archives: Red

Tyrrell's Old Patch Shiraz 2009

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I got my Tyrrell’s mailer the other day advertising the 2010 Private Bin reds. It reminded me that I hadn’t yet tasted the 09 Old Patch, so I made a point of pulling it out at the first opportunity. The 2007 Old Patch was a dense, somewhat forbidding wine on release, so I was pleased to see this present much more expressively, even after being open for only a short while. Two days on, it has flowered more completely, allowing this wine’s essential contradiction — a muscular flavour profile combined with a delicacy of structure and weight — to become clear.

The nose is perhaps best described as cubist, presenting both sharp graphite and iron filings with pungent florals and crisp cranberry fruit, clearly dimensioned and drawn with considerable detail. The oak is subtle and feels old, more nougat and peanuts than spice and coffee. Some regional dirt rounds out the aroma profile.

The palate is only medium bodied with a firm structure based on a line of driving, orange juice acid. There’s no much point dissecting flavour components as such; the wine tastes whole, seamless and well-textured,  with impeccable balance. What it’s not is sensational, and it would be easy to underestimate what this brings in terms of quality and longevity. But in its own way, this is as impressive, if not more so, than the 2007, trading outright power for a rare elegance and clarity.

How it will age is both a little curious and tremendously exciting; I’d love to see this in twenty years’ time. Perhaps I’ll make it my mission to do so.

Tyrrell’s
Price: $A45
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Yelland & Papps Devote Old Vine Grenache 2009

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This is the third vintage of this wine I’ve tasted, and I do believe it’s getting better with each iteration. Looking back over my notes, the 2008 was a significant advance over the 2007. The current vintage is again a really good expression of Barossa Grenache, notable for the way it balances typically sweet fruit with a range of sappy, savoury notes.

The nose is clean and highly expressive, showing sharp snapped succulent and fresh red fruit, coffee, brown spice and charry oak. The fruit and oak influences are very well balanced, fruit presenting first then relaxing into complex, subtle, pleasingly rustic barrel-derived notes. It’s both warm and fresh at the same time, sort of like wearing the warmest, wooliest jumper you own on a crisp, early Spring day.

The palate is true to the nose in both flavour profile and balance, starting early and sustaining fruit presence along most of its line. There’s a core of clean, medicinal fruit around which a range of other flavours gather, some fruit and some from oak. Reasonable intensity (Yelland & Papps wines never seem to want to be powerhouses, even the upper labels), medium weight, nice drive. A bit of heat, but I expect that from this style of wine. The only disappointment here is a simplistic texture that is just a bit too pumped up and slippery for its own good. I’d like to see more tannin texture and dimensionality. It’s a small niggle, though.

Very nice, strongly regional Grenache.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Leasingham Bin 61 Shiraz 2008

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I have fond memories of this label and its stablemate, the Bin 56 Cabernet Malbec. For years, they exemplified the sort of great value, regional, age-worthy red that drinkers on a budget tend to gravitate towards. Hence, I have enjoyed many vintages of this, both as a new release and as an aged wine. It’s been a while since I tasted it regularly, though, so was pleased to see it arrive in the mail and curious to understand what today’s Bin 61 is like.

I certainly don’t remember it being quite as approachable as this. One of the things I like about Clare reds is their ruggedness, usually expressed through a heap of oak and the sort of genuine, yet coarse, fruit flavour profile that suggests a slightly embarrassing, but lovable, relation. This wine retains a significant oak influence, expressing mostly chocolate notes and some dark spice, as well as hints of the vegetal, dark fruit character that seems typical of this region. There’s a sheen, though, a sense of polish that rubs out the splinters and smooths the fruit’s edgier side, making the whole thing very drinkable as a young wine.

The palate continues in this vein, with a dense burst of sweet fruit on the middle palate the dominant element. According to the press release that accompanied this sample, the Schobers vineyard, from which some of the fruit for this wine was sourced, contributes to this fuller, sweeter fruit aspect. I’ll have to take Constellation’s word for it, not being intimately familiar with the character of individual Clare vineyards; what’s undeniable is the sweet, clean fruit that flows with each sip. Some might wish for more restraint, a greater tannin influence, an edgier profile. Certainly, I remember the Bin 61 being a more structured style than this. However, on its own terms, this is a very well-made wine with plenty of commercial appeal. At a decent discount off retail, you could do a lot worse.

Leasingham
Price: $A26
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Clayfield Massif Shiraz 2009

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Regular readers will know that at Full Pour we can embrace a more subjective approach as, at times, the most vivid way of communicating a particular wine’s pleasures. Even so, the reaction prompted in me by this wine is sufficiently extreme that it has pushed me towards one of my ultimate, if perverse, ambitions: to write a tasting note without describing the wine at all. I hasten to add that I won’t seek to achieve that ambition with this piece; if nothing else, Simon Clayfield’s 2009 Massif deserves a full account in conventional terms, and I’m committed to giving it at least that. Yet even starting down that path with this wine is hopelessly, frustratingly inadequate, because what matters most here is its personality.

Like a good friend who remains appealing despite thorough familiarity, this wine enters the room, sits right down next to you, issues a warm hug and leans back to chat. Talk starts, an accelerating cascade of comment and counterpoint, creating a dialogue that makes time seem irrelevant. Needless to say, trying to explain this in terms of the wine’s highly spiced, peppery aroma, its liquefied plum fruit, its ingratiating flow over the tongue, will never do. Perhaps its truly Grampians character gets a bit closer, but something that’s simply recognisable doesn’t necessarily imbue it with the sort of magnetism I’m seeing in this wine. I think what gets me here is the way in which each element is expressed; it’s not the words being said, it’s the tone, the rhythm, the harmonics that flow in, around and under each expression. Things that don’t consciously register but which nonetheless are full of meaning.

So that this wine has a complex flavour profile, including marvelously rich soy sauce, intense spice, mellifluous plum, is fine but insufficient by way of explanation. Like a fabulous raconteur, it takes what it has, which may be conventional when viewed in conventional terms, and transforms the experience of it into something special, purely through a sense of style, attractive flair, well timed vulgarity. And just as it would be difficult to fall in love with a page of printed words, but easy with an idea, so this wine is tugging firmly at my emotions, not my intellect. I encourage you to spend some time in its company.

Clayfield Wines
Price: $A30
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Lock & Key Shiraz 2009

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I really like Hilltops Shiraz; at its best, it has a flavour profile that I can only describe as “purple.” Vivid, slightly vulgar, yet soft at the same time. It strikes a nice halfway point between a pure cool climate attitude and the lushness of our warm climate styles, combining a dose of hedonism with the serious angularity of pepper and spice. Happily, this very affordable wine shows great typicité.

The nose has a notably deep aroma profile that shows layers of pepper, brown spice and squishy base of plush, dark fruit. Totally purple. This is the kind of aroma that dismisses complexity as an objective, because what’s there, though straightforward, is so attractive. I don’t mean to undersell this as some sort of dumb but pretty quaffing wine (though it could fill that role admirably, if only on the basis of its price).

The palate is quite breathtakingly structured, though whether its acid is fully integrated is a question mark for me. In any case, there’s a good rush of dense fruit flavour on entry, tickled around the edges by white pepper and crushed leaf. Things move into a more composed, almost elegant place through the after palate, where the wine thins out a little and delivers more complexity of flavour, including an intriguing medicinal note. A bit of hardness through the finish.

I reckon this is a great weeknight wine, much smarter and more identifiably regional than a lot of wines at this price point. Nice.

Moppity
Price: $A14.99
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Kirrihill Tullymore Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

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They’re hardly fashionable, but I do like a good Clare Valley red now and then. Back in the day, and like many wine lovers of my generation I suppose, I cut my teeth on well-priced Clare reds from makers like Annie’s Lane. As a consequence, I have a soft spot for the somewhat rustic character a lot of reds from this region can show. Here we have a single vineyard wine, well priced at $19, from maker Kirrihill.

The nose is gentle and clean, with aromas of old nougat oak, blackcurrant, crushed leaf and some pencil shavings. It’s not especially complex, but it is well integrated and, in profile, quite pretty. It’s also a bit wan, and I wish it had just a bit more bite, less polish, more sex. As it is, the aroma is tentative and too softly-spoken.

The palate is a bit more satisfying thanks to a really attractive mouthfeel that modulates between loose knit tannins and a line of crunchy acid, tossing the wine into various corners of the mouth with a nice sense of liveliness. Flavours take a while to gather steam, peaking on the middle palate with a burst of bright red fruit and sweet oak. Though it’s not a big wine, it feels generous and warm, giving everything it’s got to the drinker.

Not a bad wine then, showing decent character on the palate in particular.

Kirrihill
Price: $A19
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Dowie Doole Shiraz 2009

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I’m slowly recovering from the most unpleasant cold I’ve had in years, and tonight I thought I’d ease back into tasting with what is usually an easy wine to enjoy — Dowie Doole’s regular Shiraz. As impressive as this producer’s upper echelon of wines can often be, I enjoy the regular release for its extreme drinkability and unpretentious style.

I suspect the tricky 2009 vintage is showing through here in a slightly harder flavour profile than usual; there’s a woody, spicy, vegetal influence that competes with the wine’s lush, sweet fruit, though the latter is never overpowered by it, ensuring the style’s fundamentals still shine through in the end. The aroma starts with spice and transitions quickly to cherries and plums and rich, dark chocolate. It’s a guilty pleasure candy bar of an aroma profile, again with that slightly hard edge but also a soft, gooey core.

The palate echoes the nose quite precisely, wood and spice giving way to slightly stewed plum fruit that dominates the middle and after palates. This is a pricklier wine than usual, more angular and challenging. Still, it’s also a Dowie Doole Shiraz, so remains firmly in easy drinking territory, still showing as much freshness and drinkability as possible. The finish is a lovely surprise, long and spiced and red fruited.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Giaconda Pinot Noir 2008

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As luck would have it, I’m enjoying my Easter long weekend in bed with a messy, feverish chest cold for company. Rather than attempt to taste wine in this condition, I thought I’d reflect on a bottle drunk a week or two ago. This was a gift from my ever-generous co-author Chris. I shall save the other bottle to taste with him, as I’d really like a second opinion here.

It’s clear this wine is all quality, with intensity, power and drive to spare. Stylistically, though, it raises an equally clear question: do these ostensibly desirable qualities contribute to drinkability? I’m not so sure. But first, my impressions of the wine itself. The nose is massively complex, even at a young age. The character of the fruit is alternately sweet/savoury, the Yarra component evident in what strikes me as a luscious, if somewhat blunt, slice of juicy fruit pie. There’s a good deal of oak here too, charry and bold. I was quite bowled over by this wine’s impact at first, and it took me a moment to realise I was being overpowered by the wine, pushed around and told what to do.

The palate is equally powerful and somewhat front-loaded in shape, with good acid and a lovely, drying chalky finish. Flavours echo the nose, with rhubarb and strawberries bursting through an underlay of savoury complexity and an overlay of glossy oak. Again, quite an overpoweringly awesome wine, but at the same time one that doesn’t encourage onward consumption. Indeed, one glass was quite enough, and though there’s no denying the skill and fruit at play, I ended up feeling slightly cornered.

Giaconda
Price: $NA
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Gift

Fecha 2006

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I’ll keep this short. Three weeks ago, I joined Turista Libre! for an art tour to Tijuana. After visiting the Tijuana cultural center and seeing one of the most interesting exhibits I’ve seen in years (largely to do with the visual language of Tijuana), I was fortunate enough to have lunch at cielo, an amazingly good restaurant in the brand new Via Corporativo building, Tijuana’s first high-tech green office building, which also houses Mision 19, the hottest new restaurant in Mexico, as well as a new branch of la CONTRA, an impossibly stylish Mexican wine shop.

Earlier in the week, I’d seen the label for this wine on their Web site and decided that it was a categorical imperative that I buy a bottle. As luck would have it, it was not only far more expensive than I was expecting – I had to beg my partner for cash to complete the purchase – but it wasn’t even made from noble grapes, whatever that means. Oh, hell no. It’s made from Carignane, which is about as low rent as grapes get in this part of the world.

Flash forward to this evening: it’s a work night, and I’ve convinced a coworker who also knows a thing or two about good wine to come over after work and share a pizza. We start with a 1998 Clonakilla shiraz viognier, which is beautiful, elegant, tranquil, and calming – and then I figure, oh, what the hell, might as well open this bottle of Mexican wine that is probably wildly overpriced and not terribly good.

I haven’t been more wrong about a bottle of wine in years. I’ll keep this mercifully short: this is one of the best wines I have tasted in years. Much like the Mogor-Badan chasselas from the same part of the world, this wine is simultaneously breathtakingly beautiful and deceptively plain. With a sweet nose of bacon-smoked cherries, hickory wood, and dried plums, the wine suddenly detours into a wonderfully somber, heavy-tannined, plush murmur of serious bass (think Orange amplification, of course) along the lines of, say, an Om LP. This wine does all of the things that good wines do: every time you smell it, it changes: sometimes it smells of oranges and Christmas spices; other times, it smells of finely ground white pepper in a blazing white kitchen with sauerbraten cooking. The acidity is rude in the best possible way, reminding you that, hey, this is carignane, you know, and not some brain-dead Napa cab. The finish goes on so long that Rebecca Black is probably responsible for it. More than anything, else, though, is the overwhelming, ecstatic sense you get that you’ve never, ever drunk anything like this before. This, my friends, is Mexico.

Fecha
Price: $75
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Château Laffitte-Teston Madiran Vieilles Vignes 2007

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The generosity of wine lovers is endlessly fabulous. On Friday evening, I had the pleasure of Mark Gifford’s company, and not only did I retaste part of his Blue Poles portfolio (go the Allouran), but I was given the opportunity to taste this wine, which Mark had brought back from his last stint in France. Like Mark himself, this wine proved a deliciously easygoing dining companion, and one that demonstrates structure does not come at the expense of drinkability.

Tannat is renowned for its tannins, so I was looking forward to a mouthful of sweet sandpaper with this wine. But first, the nose, a balancing act of gorgeously voluptuous red fruits and strong savoury overtones strongly reminiscent of smoked herbs. Am I over-romanticising things to suggest that wines from warm climes smell like the summer days through which they evolved as fruit on vine? Perhaps, but this wine’s aroma strongly evokes lazy summer days, ripening berries, wild herb gardens and the thirsty laziness of balmy afternoons.

This wine’s contradictions come to the fore on the palate. It’s beautifully balanced for drinking, a gush of bright, medium bodied red fruit immediately presenting on entry. It comes across slightly sweeter on the palate, perhaps due to a relative absence of the distinctively herbal thread seen on the nose. Here, instead of savouriness, fruit is balanced by tannins that are both prominent and well distributed. This isn’t a monstrous wine, structurally, nor is it a wine that “demands food” like, say, Sangiovese. The tannins sprinkle, then shower, the tongue with loose-knit sweetness, while all that red fruit keeps driving down the line. So easy, delicious and unpretentious.

Château Laffitte-Teston
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork
Source: Gift