Category Archives: Red

Dominique Portet Shiraz 2002

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Sadly, I only had one bottle of this left – and I opened it just now only to find that it was corked. Based on the previous bottles of this I’ve enjoyed over the years, though, I’ll leave this not-a-tasting-note up here as a reminder of the quality of the other bottles; this wine is a good example of New World wine made with a nod towards Old World sensibilities: it’s not over-oaked, not overly alcoholic, and yet hasn’t artificially been limited in its elevage so that it slavishly mimics Old World wines. Instead, what you get is a wine that walks the line between the two: fully ripe New World fruit, yet with earth and minerality (subtle, but it’s there). Even relatively soon after its release – a year or two, if memory serves – it had characteristics of older wines: a relatively flat, gracious palate with fine grained tannins and a rich nose of sweet brambly fruit.I’ll miss this stuff and hope to find more of it again in the future.Dominique Portet
Price: $20
Closure: Cork

Sandstone Cellars V

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There’s something to be said for a wine that makes itself smelled even from across the table. I poured a glass of this, sat down at the computer, and at no point forgot that it was there: it positively exudes perfume. The color is remarkable: rich and deep, dark red with a slightly watery rim, at first giving the appearance of an older wine but somehow it’s all very youthful at the same time.

One smell of this and I’m transported: this does not smell like any wine I’ve had before. All kinds of random associations come to mind: the crisp, dry, crinkly skin of fresh tomatillos; dusty corridors in government buildings in distant counties, dessicating in the summer heat; the smell of the upstairs closet with Mom’s college papers, reel-to-reel tapes and all; a warm summer’s night in the house where grew up in the San Joaquin valley, crickets and trains on the night breeze, the warmth never fully gone from the hay bales outside. It’s remarkable.

Trying to think more traditionally about this for a minute, there seems to be a dry, dusty mint or basil note hovering over dry baker’s chocolate on the nose, wet earth, dried meats (not smoked), and (remarkably) something like dried violets. In all honest, I find it absolutely fascinating: so many different smells, such odd suggestions of things that really don’t have tastes or smells. If a mark of a great wine is that it somehow manages to remind you of things in your past that you’ve forgotten, well, then this wine’s a great one.

The first thing that strikes me about this wine in the mouth is the texture: it seems much richer, unctuous, fat, wide than most others do. Taking a minute to experience the physicality of the wine, I sense that it seems to slip away quietly, somehow vanishing towards the middle-back of the mouth while leaving that same impression of fullness behind. There’s good acidity here, which I suppose guarantees the soft disappearance; the tannins are finely checked and leave a lingering sense of elegance.

As far as the flavor of the thing goes, it again doesn’t really taste like any other wines I know. There are fleeting hints of typical syrah and zinfandel – snatches of deep, plummy fruit and smoky bacon fat – and yet there’s some other flavor dominant which (and I do apologize for the suggestion) somehow reminds me of mucilage or packing tape: it’s definitely not the usual thing. At times I find it challenging and not quite welcome; at other times, especially when paired with some soppressata-style salami, it calms down into something more conventionally agreeable, with flashes of comforting sweetness amongst rich smoky earth and ripe red fruits.

I have absolutely no idea what Don Pullum and the rest of the folks at Sandstone Cellars are doing, but it’s some of the most interesting wine I’ve ever tasted. If there ever needed to be proof that Texas makes serious wine, this is it.

Sandstone Cellars
Price: $25
Closure: Cork

Cardinham Estate Shiraz 2006

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I have a soft spot for Clare Shiraz and this is good example of the genre, in an easygoing and very much fruit-driven mode. In terms of provenance and winemaking, this comes from 100% Estate grapes and is aged in older American oak for eighteen months. 

A dark, brambly nose that shows juicy blackberries, sambuca and a bit of sweet vanilla. There’s a sense of straightforwardness to the aroma profile that suggests easy satisfaction; it doesn’t play hard to get. Very much a similar story on the palate, with plenty of juicy dark berry fruits and enough oak to frame the fruit flavours appropriately. Entry is fairly slow to get started, though by the time the middle palate arrives there’s an abundance of generous fruit and edges of spicy anise. Very well judged tannins begin to flow at this point, quite loose-knit and ripe. The after palate shows a lighter fruit character, verging on red berries, before a coffee and liqueur finish of some deliciousness.
Nice wine, this one. It combines the spirit of a quaffer with the flavour profile of something considerably more distinctive and regional. 

Cardinham Estate
Price: $A20
Closure: Stelvin

Bonny Doon Old Telegram 2000

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I’ll be the first to say that this wine isn’t pretty. Holding up to the light, it’s murky – it looks like river dregs, Delta muck, sediment. It all looks either very unsettled or in the process of disintegrating. Still, can’t say that I remember what this wine was like when it was young, so who cares, right?Right off the bat, the first thing I notice about the nose is that oddball candy-coated playtime of a nose that I associated with Bonny Doon’s experiments with micro-oxygenation from ten or so years back. There’s a strange, fruity, children’s-candy effect that I never particularly cared for; I prefer my mataro earthier, not fruitier. Once you get past it, though, there’s a lightly roasted/smoked coffee effect that’s intriguing, parried by a sort-of wild strawberry ostrich jerky effect. Curious.Relatively light-bodied at first, the wine quickly turns spicy in the mouth, tasting of candied orange peel and slab smoked bacon. Even if it seems light at first, solid tannins make themselves known soon enough, grounding it all in a heavy-handed, gripping manner perhaps better suited to the Detroit police. There’s a rich sweetness to the fruit yet, though, which rides above it all, lending it an air of deeply unserious seriousness that really doesn’t help pull it all together.To me, this wine tastes like the sort of thing a middle-aged winemaker would make: they’ve had some career success, sure, and the cognoscenti are familiar with the brand, but instead of doubling down and recommitting to better wines, middle-aged boredom has set in and now you’re playing around with shiny new toys instead of soberly paying attention to what you’re doing. I’m not disappointed by this wine – I think it’s decidedly unique and I’m glad it exists – and yet it seems that it’s a failure of sorts – a failure to pay attention to what Nature gave you and making that wine instead of whipping our your lab kit and making a wine that could only have been made technologically. What you get is interesting, sure, but it seems alienated from itself (alas, my attention span for Marxist theory was woefully short at university, so I can’t spin this out into a class critique of a wine that was forced to be something it wasn’t, alienating it from its true nature in the process).With more air, there’s a dark smoky fatigue here that suggests the wine is reaching its end of life (later rather than soon, I suspect). I’m enjoying it with pasta and red sauce; the meat of the wine is amplified by the meatballs and vice versa. If you’ve got this, drink it up now.Bonny Doon Vineyard
Price: $30
Closure: Cork

Blue Poles Reserve Merlot 2007

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The third of three recent Merlots and, to jump to the end, this wine elicits a big “wow” from me. If you like good Merlot, good red wine, or good things generally, put in your order.

We’re not about summary judgement here at Full Pour, though, so now comes the task of describing the wine, which is considerably more difficult than simply recommending it. The first thing to note is it’s very young but, unlike the 2007 Unison Merlot, is drinking very well right now. A bit tight on opening, the aroma has melted over the course of an hour to reveal gorgeous red and black berries, tobacco leaf, some classy cedar oak, and general savouriness, all expressed within a cleanly articulated structure that draws the elements together in one repeatedly sniffable package. 
On the palate, the intensity of fruit becomes fully apparent, as does a structure of beautiful clarity. Medium bodied, this wine starts subtly on entry, with mostly savoury notes (some sulphur-derived influences perhaps?) leading into a gradual crescendo of red and black berry fruit. There is a range of other elements that participate in the flavour profile, many of a richly leafy character, and subtly vanillan oak plays a part too.  Although there are tannins aplenty, they don’t unduly block the wine’s expression, even at this early stage in its life.  On the after palate, the fruit character morphs into a decadent liqueur-like expression. Very impressive finish.
One often reads descriptions of Merlot in terms of rich, soft fruitiness and a slight absence of structure. Flip this on its head and you have something akin to this wine, which is all about precise fruit, firm structure and a sense of sophistication that transcends my poor attempt to transcribe the experience of drinking it. 

Blue Poles Vineyard
Price: $A35
Closure: Stelvin

Unison Reserve Merlot 2007

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Yesterday’s 2008 Dowie Doole Merlot was the first of what I hope will be three quite different expressions of this grape (the third is a Blue Poles wine from Margaret River). The second, this Unison wine, is from the Gimblett Gravels sub-region of Hawkes Bay in New Zealand. Imported into Australia by Eurocentric Wine. 

A nose whose interest remains somewhat locked behind bars – it’s all there, though, you just need to look a bit harder for it. Mostly, this is just young; tight aromas of liver paté, rich potpourri, dried mixed peel and all manner of other things (including a wisp of nougat-like oak). The complexity here is quite impressive, though on initial pouring it really needs some swirling to draw out what’s on offer. As the evening wears on, the aroma is evolving a more fluid and generous expression.
The palate is also quite tight but blessed with an immediate gush of red berry fruit that creates good impact. On entry, tingly acidity that contributes both texture and sourness to this rush of fruit. Darker berries build towards the middle palate, as do flowers and spice and a medicinal note, quite dense and sombre in overall profile, though at the same time very detailed, indeed almost etched. Abundant tannins creep in at this point, drying the tongue and creating a good deal of textural interest. Although not an overwhelmingly full wine, its youth clearly evident, it nonetheless communicates a sense of plush richness that is quite seductive. A lift of lighter fruit on the after palate continues on and on through a lengthy finish.
This needs a couple of years in bottle, or a good spell in the decanter, to shed some of its structural aggressiveness. There’s real quality here, though; serious in intent without resorting to stylistic exaggeration.

Unison Vineyard
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin

Dowie Doole Merlot 2008

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A less-than-ideal tasting at the recent Brisbane Fine Wine Festival nonetheless left me intrigued by this wine, and I’ve been keen to try it again in more relaxed circumstances. At the time, in a lineup of McLaren Vale reds, this stood for the clarity and freshness of its flavours. Picked “before the heatwave,” the fruit going into this wine is mostly Merlot, with 7% each of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

Pretty lean and tight initially, a good deal of swirling yields dividends in the form of dark berry fruit aromas, some spice and the sort of herbal notes that remind me of raindrops on young foliage. It’s a straightforward aroma profile in some respects, perhaps deceptively so, as its coherence tends to mask (in a positive sense) reasonable complexity. A bit of vanilla ice cream oak rounds things off nicely.
The palate is full of clean fruit which, happily, confirms my initial experience of this wine. Like the Teusner Riebke, this is all about fresh, delicious fruit flavour, and this it delivers in the context of a style that manages to be distinctive and approachable at the same time. Quite bound up on entry, it takes a few seconds for flavours to burst onto the tongue. Mostly savoury dark fruit, spice and a bit of dark chocolate flow well through the middle palate, becoming slightly lighter as the wine moves to the back of the mouth. It’s is only just medium bodied, so the decadent vitality of its flavour profile is especially pleasing. Powdery tannins provide a nice foil to the directness of the fruit, leading to firm, dry finish with a cheeky kick of sweet fruit at the last minute.
It could do with a few months’ rest to unlock the full potential of the fruit, but I am enjoying this wine tremendously for its balance, freshness and easy charm. A great example of the triumph of drinkability over contrived style.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A21
Closure: Stelvin

Ballandean Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

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I feel a bit lame for not writing up more local wines, so consider this an assuagement of my sense of guilt as much as anything else. Still, my notes on Full Pour are in large part a reflection of what I choose to drink for pleasure, and the reality is I haven’t explored Queensland wines to any significant extent. Not to diminish this particular wine before I’ve even started, of course. Here we have a straight Cabernet from the Granite Belt region, produced by one of its oldest wineries. 

There are some distinctive things happening on the nose here; quite a strong smell of turned earth and dusty red fruits in addition to more typically Cabernet aromas of leafiness and dark berries. The fruit character strikes me as quite ripe, a bit stewed even, and the earth notes aren’t squeaky clean, but the whole is expressive, generous and quite fun.
Stewed fruit is more evident in the mouth, robbing the wine of a sense of freshness and varietal character. If you can get past this, though, there’s certainly some enjoyment to be had. Despite relatively assertive tannins, the structure of this wine is loose, flavour tending to collapse onto the tongue in a generous but messy wave. Perhaps it’s my mood, but the flavour profile as a whole seems tangled, and I’m having trouble resolving the individual elements in amongst a crowded, yet indistinct, mass of elements. The after palate thins somewhat, allowing a bit of heat to emerge on the finish.
I’m tasting this wine critically, so it’s probably fair to say the observations I’ve made will matter very little to someone looking for a flavoursome dry red to throw back on a weekday evening. In this functional role it performs admirably. 

Ballandean Estate
Price: $A14.25
Closure: Cork

Montes Limited Selection Cabernet Sauvignon Carménère 2007

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After a couple of lackluster Pinots, I’m enjoying this generously flavoured Chilean wine very much. I bought this wine is because it is 30% Carménère, a variety once linked with Bordeaux but now associated primarily with Chile. And it was cheap.

Turns out it’s also really good and full of interest. Rich, Cabernet-dominant nose that reeks of overgrown gardens and ripe berries, though with a rich, chocolatey dimension that counters the angularity of the vegetation and adds depth and plushness to the aroma profile. There’s also a meaty, barnyard element that sits in the background. Unlike some Cabernets, this doesn’t come across as intellectual so much as a strong yet luscious. 
Medium to full bodied, there’s immediate satisfaction on entry; dark berries and bitter chocolate and just enough of a herbal edge to generate some tension. Really, though, this is as hedonistic as Cabernet gets; by the time the middle palate arrives, you’re pretty much just enjoying a wash of dense berry flavour and a mouthfeel that modulates between roundness and furry tannin texture. A nice burst of Hubba Bubba on the after palate, some more chocolate and just a hint of oak, then a decent finish to round things off.
This is in many respects an ideal budget wine. It doesn’t scale any heights of complexity or intensity, but it has character and outstanding drinkability. 

Viña Montes
Price: $A14.25
Closure: Cork

Irvine Springhill Merlot 2006

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From one of the few makers in Australia focusing on Merlot as its signature red grape comes this affordable wine made from a blend of Eden and Barossa fruit. I’ve enjoyed previous vintages of this label very much.

Nice nose, a little muted perhaps, showing a mix of bouncy dark berry fruit and leaner, more vegetal notes that strike me as varietal rather than unripe. It’s not quite in the olive spectrum as I have found some Merlot to be, but is definitely on the funkier side, all of which is a relief because one sometimes dreads the simplicity of this grape, in particular at the “value” end of the price scale. As it is, good to smell — not enough volume though — with a subtle thread of bubble-gum oak.
In the mouth, surprisingly well structured, with spiky acidity and loose-knit tannins very much at the fore. In fact, the fruit never quite attains sufficient intensity to match the firm structure, such that there’s an element of imbalance; it’s like a fantastically detailed underground cave which should house a raging river but which is instead graced with a lazy stream. Still, one can’t have it all, and the flavours on offer are most attractive, despite their reticence. Ripe plum and blackberry, some powdery vanilla, and a hint of the vegetal note observed on the nose. It’s not complex, but neither is it facile. 
I’m wishing for more oomph but each sip brings good enjoyment nonetheless. Good food wine.

Irvine Wines
Price: $A17.09
Closure: Stelvin