Category Archives: Red

Kingston Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

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It’s time for one of my periodic forays into ultra-value territory. It’s just as well I don’t score wines, because I freely admit my expectations of inexpensive wines are quite different from those I apply to costlier labels, and those expectations probably influence my drinking pleasure as much, if not more, than any objective notions of quality.

Take varietal character. I expect most wines at the $A20+ price point to embody their varietal (and, for that matter, their regional) origins. However, I’m often happy to drink a cheap wine that simply tastes good without worrying too much about transparency of expression. So it was a pleasant surprise to immediately recognise in this wine the dusty cassis aromas for which Cabernet is so well known. It’s so correct, in fact, that it took me a moment to recognise what I think is a hint of DMS, which, in small quantities, can sometimes enhance the fruit character of Cabernet-based wines. It does so here, creating a very pure and straightforward aroma profile, fruit-focused but with just a little nougat oak to add sex appeal.

The palate doesn’t quite live up to the nose’s promise for two reasons. Firstly, it lacks drive and intensity, being quite laid back in its flow and flavour. Secondly, it shows a slight confectionary edge to the fruit flavour that isn’t really evident on the nose. I suppose it’s testament, though, to this wine’s appeal that I’m even tempted to engage it on this level. Tannins are slightly fake-tasting but technically solid and evenly spread. They’re also quite prominent for a wine that is ostensibly about quaffing. A nice dry finish ends with a lilt of oak flavour to round things off.

An excellent wine for the money.

Kingston Estate
Price: $A13.99
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Flaxman Drone Blend 2009

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I never know what to expect when I open a Barossa Valley Rhône-ish blend. Stylistically, producers seem to try everything, from the richest of rich wines through to lighter, more claret-like interpretations, a category to which this wine belongs.

On pouring, it’s immediately apparent there’s no great density of colour here, and this is the first clue as to the style on offer. The second comes quickly on the nose, where instead of the wall of fruity goodness one might anticipate, there is instead an angular, prickly aroma profile that teases rather than leaps from the glass. The second interesting feature of this wine now presents: the Mataro component is very prominent. There’s some typically sweet, confectionary Grenache fruit, but dominating this note is a meaty, savoury, frankly challenging set of Mataro aromas that are really fascinating and moreish.

The palate confirms this wine’s light attitude as well as its curious savouriness. Entry is quite striking, with an edge of acid leading to a flash of sweet fruit before the meat takes over and carries this wine through to an elegant, supple middle palate. I like the way the two constituent grapes appear to fight against each other as this winds its way down the line, sweet and savoury intertwining and constantly threatening to pull apart but never seeming to go that far. A lift of well-judged oak supports the after palate and ushers in a dry, slightly resinous finish.

Be careful how you match this with food. Its distinctiveness will be lost with something too robust (like my burger dinner). A subtle, sloppy ragu would be perfect, I reckon.

Flaxman Wines
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Flaxman Eden Valley Shiraz 2008

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To the many ways one might measure value for money in wine, I vote for the addition of a “cred” scale. If such a measure existed, this wine would score very highly indeed. For a mere $A25 $A45 (see below), the buyer can enjoy an Eden Valley Shiraz (ding!), made by an utterly boutique producer (ding!) from Estate fruit (ding!) grown on old vines… well, you get the idea. My pocket authenticiometre really does register off the scale here.

None of which guarantees any measure of enjoyment. But it’s a conceptual start, and if one believes wine is, ideally, more than simply what’s in the glass, such things can matter. For instance, it may raise certain expectations of style and even quality: one might look to wines like this for fashionably traditional winemaking, or a clearer view into vintage conditions, and so on.

First impressions are solid; the aroma expresses a thick, ripe plum note that seems half way between the Barossa Valley and the Grampians, in that it combines the lusciousness of the Valley’s styles with a hint of the angularity one sees in cooler climate wines. I do such a classic style a disservice by comparing it to other wines, though; this is Eden Shiraz, if a ripe, relatively forward expression of the style. There are other aroma nuances too – a hint of pepper, some twig and dust.

This fullness of expression carries through to the palate, and here the wine is likely to polarise drinkers. This is a full-throttle wine whose density of flavour alone is impressive. Right from the entry, there’s chewy plum fruit, ripe brambles (the fruit and the wood) and nervous oak. The trade-off for all this flavour is a certain brutality to the flavour profile and in the way it registers on the tongue. It slams rather than floats down, creating a vivid sense of impact but lacking some finesse. Tannins are thick and chewy, contributing to a notably dry after palate and finish.

You could never mistake this wine for the product of large-scale winemaking; it wears its imperfections too flagrantly for that. Something to be thankful for.

Update: price on the sample bottle was wrong. This wine in fact retails for $45.

Flaxman Wines
Price: $A45
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Ridge Lytton Springs 2005

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Wine lovers are often bargain hunters too, perhaps by necessity. Back in 2002, Chris and I happened to be in the same city at the same time (Sydney), and experienced the joy of locating, then purchasing, an entire stash of 1994 Ridge Geyserville from a little bottle shop in Chinatown. To find such a wine was grand enough, but the proprietors of the bottle shop in which it lay clearly had no idea what it was, and were happy to sell us the lot for (from memory) about ten dollars a bottle.

Of course, wines of such dodgy provenance often prove disappointing, let alone ones made of a grape (Zinfandel) whose ability to age is contested. But the first bottle we opened that night — before our most memorable dinner — was good, and so was every bottle tasted thereafter. I’ve long finished my half of the stash, but the memory of both the find and the consumption remain vivid. Chris regularly stokes these fond recollections by providing a bottle or two of Ridge wine whenever we meet to drink, so over the years I’ve been lucky enough to taste everything from various Monte Bellos to a spectacular Syrah that gave a bottle of 2001 Clonakilla Shiraz Viognier tasted alongside a run for its money. I remember approaching that Syrah after some initial courses of German Riesling and so on; we were at that point in a grand dinner where the company, food and alcohol begin to meld into a single warm sensation. I smelled it once, not knowing what to expect, and was completely unable to control a spontaneous éclat of laughter. It was so wonderful.

All of which makes it difficult for me to write objectively about Ridge wines. In a sense, though, to approach this wine through a lens of dispassionate evaluation is to miss both what it means to me and what it represents, stylistically. Although I had never tasted this particular vintage before last night, the warm prickliness of its aroma was immediately transportative. To me, this smells of Californian wine, and for that alone I grant it enormous value. Each time I taste a Zinfandel-based wine, in particular those by Ridge, I love the difference of its flavour profile. Here, there’s intense spice and fruit cake, abundant chocolate, coconut and cherries. It’s as if someone stuffed a Cherry Ripe into the ripest, richest Christmas cake imaginable. Hence, it’s not an elegant wine in either character or footprint, and I love that it presents its notes with such blustery confidence.

The palate rebalances the aroma’s intense spice by providing a core of sweet, bright red fruit that cools the flavour profile. Entry is crisp and immediate, starting dark but quickly brightening to show a mix of red and black fruits. These fruits are juicy and perfectly ripened and provide much of the pleasure of eating freshly picked berries. Swirling all around this core are warm, rich spice notes, well-balanced mocha oak and a streak of bright orange juice. The finish leaves one with a lingering impression of the purest, sweetest fruit. Structurally, this is quite spectacular, the acid totally integrated and the tannins chewy and sweet. It’s taken a day to really open up, so I’d be leaving further bottles in the cellar for at least two to three more years before retasting.

In a sense, tasting a single wine prompts one to reflect on the entirety of one’s tasting experiences. This is what makes wine a pastime that becomes exponentially richer as the years pass, and also what can magnify the experience of one wine beyond all proportion. Happily, this wine was able to bear the full weight of my memories.

Ridge
Price: £25
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Casa Vinicola Luigi Cecchi & Figli Chianti Classico 2008

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Also known as Tesco’s generic Chianti Classico. One of the things I’ve been amused by on my visit to the UK is the reorientation required when browsing supermarket wine aisles. Italian, Argentinian, Chilean and South African wines all seem to vie for cheapest spot, while the Aussies are off to one side with either unexpectedly expensive wines (for example, Jacob’s Creek) or really boring looking labels that seem to equate “export only” with a complete lack of personality on the shelf. Meanwhile, Tesco’s shelves seem heavily occupied with its own “selections” that encompass the usual regional suspects: Rhône, Burgundy, Bordeaux and various Italian regions, including of course Chianti.

So, browsing my local Tesco Express last night, I decided to do as the locals do and pick up a bottle of Tesco’s 2008 Chianti Classico to go with an Italian meal my host was preparing. There are few wines I prefer to drink with robust food more than a good Chianti, and I was curious to see how Tesco’s buyers had chosen to navigate the dangers of overcropped Sangiovese with their selection.

As it turns out, not all that well. Despite being varietally correct, this wine shows a degree of dilution that robs it of a lot of enjoyment. Sharp aromas of red cherries, twigs and raw almonds on the nose. It’s what I’d expect from such a wine, perhaps a little simple, but certainly correct. And volume isn’t the problem; what’s there is expressive. It’s just so thin, lacking in the kind of meaty density that makes any wine enticing to smell.

Again, totally correct with very attractive flavours on the palate; some marzipan thrown in amongst a big hit of sour cherries and vanilla. I’m also pleased with the wine’s mouthfeel, as it shows just enough of the rusticity that I look for in Sangiovese. But oh, how dilute are the flavours! It’s really quite tough to sit with a wine that hints at such satisfaction but which never actually delivers. Each mouthful is a struggle to get what I need from it.

Often, “food wine” is code for “not very good.” For me, though, food wines often bear the heaviest burden, as they must live up not only to their own potential but that of the meal too. The exceptional quality of my meal last night made this wine’s shortcomings even less acceptable.

Casa Vinicola Luigi Cecchi & Figli
Price: £10
Closure: Diam
Source: Retail

Clayfield Black Label Shiraz 2008

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I’m in the UK enjoying a rather overdue holiday. My current locale is the North East — County Durham — where each day is marked by lashings of rain, wind and the occasional burst of lovely sunshine. Certainly a dramatic change from the floods, cyclones and general sub-tropicalness I left behind in Queensland, but no less invigorating for it.

One thing I didn’t leave behind, though, was this bottle of wine. I brought it along to share with my host here as (what I hoped would be) an example of one of our great Shiraz styles. Three nights ago, we sat down to to a richly aromatic lamb pot roast and I thought it the right occasion to crack this open.

What a disappointment (bear with me, though). On opening, it was disjointed, overly chocolatey and lacking in the particular Grampians fruit character that makes this style so enduring and exciting. Surely this couldn’t be a representative bottle. Simon Clayfield is a painfully talented winemaker, so I had difficultly interpreting this wine’s ungainliness, as did my host, who felt it smelled overwhelmingly of dusty Christmas ornaments in musty packaging (and he’s not even a wino… impressive). We left it aside after a glass each and it’s only now that I’m returning to it, on the chance that something interesting has happened in bottle.

And boy, has it ever. The lesson here is to give this wine plenty of time and air. Three days after opening, it’s just beginning to sing with the most charming and typical plum fruit character, brown spice, flashes of red berry, brambles, dust and cocoa powder. Such complexity and luxe, it’s a wonderful wine to keep smelling. I should note, though, this is definitely a product of its vintage, being a richer wine with less classically cool climate character than is sometimes found in wines of this region.

The palate is most dramatically changed from a few days ago, showing an elegance of line that simply wasn’t present at first. It’s also pleasingly fresh, the bright fruit character and juicy orange acid contributing most to this impression. Overall, it’s medium bodied in weight and brisk in movement, scattering fruit, freshly ground spice and subtle oak across the tongue. It all culminates in a long, rustic finish whose tannins rasp the tongue coquettishly, both sweet and rough. There’s some heat on the palate, unsurprising given its 15.7% abv; whether this is an issue may vary from drinker to drinker.

So glad I waited.

Clayfield Wines
Price: $A65
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Clayfield Thomas Wills Shiraz NV

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Browsing back through my notes, I see I never wrote up the 2008 Thomas Wills Shiraz in a comprehensive manner, though my first impressions are to be found within this post on Clayfield’s range as a whole. This wine forms part of an emerging collection of labels the makers of which seem intent on engaging more deeply with the regional and stylistic histories within which they are working. I’m thinking of the Mountain X project, for example, as well as producers like The Story, who are applying modern thinking about terroir and style to ultra-traditional regions such as the Grampians.

In the case of this wine, Clayfield takes inspiration from an idea of what wine might have been like one hundred years ago in the Grampians. Whether real or imagined, the style is full-throttle and robust, very much take no prisoners in vibe. It has been especially interesting to show the 2008 to several friends over the past months. Their reactions have been far from neutral, and on the whole very positive, which suggests an earthy appeal to its powerful delivery of flavour. Alcohol levels approaching 16% abv also provoked interest, though my feeling was the wine held its heat perfectly well.

To this, the current release. Unusually, Clayfield has taken a non-vintage approach, blending material from the 2008 and 2010 vintages and, although the same liquerous earthiness I liked so much in the 2008 remains present, this release has a degree of finesse that elevates it above the previous wine.

The nose is heady with ultra-ripe plums, hints of dry earth and a whole rack of brown spices. Those looking for a peppery expression of Grampians Shiraz may not find what they’re looking for here. However, this is clearly a wine of the region, and the character of the fruit is, in particular, highly regional. There’s something extremely cuddly about the way this smells; like a prickly wool jumper. It’s not a regressive or simple aroma profile, though; its emphasis on powerfully savoury plums and rich spice is both complex and sophisticated.

The palate is where this wine departs most from its predecessor. There’s a whole dimension of detail and finesse here that wasn’t present before, and this brings another level of pleasure to what remains a muscular wine. It’s as if all the brawn has more shape and definition this year, transforming from a slightly brutish physique to one with some dashing and swing. One must put this into context, though; the flavour profile remains idiosyncratic and quite rustic, full of ripe plums, bark and spice. In particular, the tannins recall the 2008, coarse-grained and prickly, sweet and spiky.

If you liked the rough and ready vibe of the 2008, you may miss a degree of wildness in this wine. For my palate, though, this is the superior release, blending the same intensity and power with a finer flow through the mouth. This label remains a daring experiment, albeit one whose maker is clearly intent on refining year after year. This is a lot of wine for $35.

Clayfield Wines
Price: $A35
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

2005 Duckhorn Vineyards Merlot

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You ever pop the cork on a bottle, pour some in a glass, smell the wine, and say to yourself: Is that it? I mean, really? Well, this might just be one of those bottles… at least right away. After waiting fifteen minutes – actually, baking a frozen pizza – the nose finally did get somewhere. Unfortunately, though, that somewhere was more like the Greyhound station in Modesto than, you know, Pomerol or something.

This wine smells like wine. It doesn’t even smell like expensive wine: it just smells bland. There’s a little bit of sour kirsch, some spicy plums, and an awful lot of dead air. Moderately fat on the palate, there’s also an unnerving sense of absence: instead of fatness and plush, classic Napa merlot, you get the vinous equivalent of a receding hairline: as quickly as you can latch onto something worth noticing, it ebbs away into a thin, acidic, spicy, uninteresting puddle of a sweet, alcoholic cash drain. Over the course of a glass, the only marked change is that of the tannins, which tend to build over time into a thick fuzzy wall of sorts; they’re not sweet, refined, or pleasant, but they’re definitely there in an obstinately retro, oaky kind of way.

I really don’t know what to make of this wine. This was a present from some very generous coworkers a few years ago, and I was looking forward to it in a sort of ‘so this is what the other side drinks’ kind of way. I imagine that Napa merlot was Very Big Indeed in the 1990s; those were the days when every marketing executive at a company holiday party would hold forth on how the cheap crap they were pouring was no match for Pahlmeyer or what have you. Is this just a brand name coasting on reputation, hoping that rubes in less with-it parts of the country will keep on paying fifty bucks for this because they don’t know any better?

Seriously: Just grab a bottle of Hedges Red Mountain wine for a third the price and tell me why the Duckhorn even needs to exist with competition like that. Yeesh.

Duckhorn Vineyards
Price: $50
Closure: Cork
Source: Gift

Yelland & Papps Delight Grenache Shiraz 2009

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This is a very tidy release from Yelland & Papps. Increasingly, I’m interested in the wines I choose and the reasons why I might feel like one style versus another. Tonight, I didn’t want to be challenged. I wanted a wine to caress my palate with generosity and warmth, ripe fruit, lighter coloured berries. The trade-off with these styles can often involve limited complexity and an obviousness of structure that can mitigate one’s full enjoyment. But I reckon this one’s got it about right.

There’s no doubt this is is a buxom, fruit-driven wine, as befits its varieties and regional origins. The nose is full of stewed plums, fresh raspberries and other fleshy fruits, all tinged with a hint of earthiness and the sort of alcohol heat that may be objectionable to some but to me, tonight, promises guilty enjoyment. But it’s the fruit that’s the star in this aroma profile, pulpy and ripe and more than a bit loose.

The palate is a genuine continuation of the nose, flavours translating authentically to middle and after palates of some lushness. It’s not as intense as one might like, and this fact leaves me wanting a little more with each sip. So, in this sense, the wine never fully delivers on its olfactory promise. No matter; a slippery mouthfeel adds the requisite sense of luxe to one’s experience, and there’s enough prickly acidity to prevent ripe plum and red berries from overstaying their welcome. Slight, powdery tannins overlay a finish that is part heat and part hollow. It’s all over much too quickly.

I’m enjoying this beyond what is reasonable and, despite its flaws, feel this really works.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A19.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Mitchell Harris Cabernet Sauvignon 2009

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Am I wrong to have firmer expectations of Cabernet’s flavour profile compared to, say, Shiraz? Where one tends to celebrate the regional differences between many wines, I find myself occasionally knocking a Cabernet for tasting un-Cabernetish. Perhaps one of my resolutions this year should be to keep an open mind when it comes to this particular variety. Who knows, I might even start enjoying the Barossa version.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. First up, this wine from the Pyrenees in Victoria. It’s regional, moderate of body, cleanly made, and offers a clear alternative to Coonawarra and Margaret River styles. So far so good.

Except of course if you have an aversion to those typically Pyrenean gum tree influences. Personally, I’ve never had an issue with a balanced intrusion of these aromas, so for me the nose is attractively supple, with crisp black berries and slightly raw oak forming the balance of notes. The aroma is prickly and young; elegant is perhaps the wrong descriptor. Light oughtn’t automatically be equated with elegance, and here the impression is more one of youthful enthusiasm, of an underdeveloped frame showing some muscularity but lacking the bulk one might expect of a fully grown specimen.

This carries through to the palate, though I am very much enjoying what seems to me an adolescent work in progress. Very clean and correct in its progress down the line, this wine starts with savoury red and black berries, progresses through some leaf and cedar to end up with a slightly aggressive astringency that should calm with time and air. Perhaps it’s a little dilute in absolute terms, but its style is such that this seems an asset rather than a fault. It’s terribly easy to drink, goes well with food (in my case a robust pasta bake) and isn’t so expensive that one would feel guilty for polishing off a bottle rather too quickly. There’s something to be said for such a lack of pretension.

Mitchell Harris
Price: $A24.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample