Category Archives: White

Reichsrat von Buhl Dry Riesling 2008

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Dry German Rieslings interest me for at least two reasons. Firstly, I rarely see them for sale locally. Secondly, they inevitably invite comparison to local Rieslings, which to my mind are amongst the best, indeed are perhaps the very best, dry styles in the world. Ironically, just as dry Germans seem to be coming into vogue, Australian makers are chasing off-dry styles that model Old World wines. One wonders sometimes whether adventurous winemakers are motivated by the pursuit of beauty or simply by boredom.

Anyway, there’s no mistaking this wine for an Australian Riesling, which in theory is a good starting point. There’s a bit of spritz evident on pouring. The nose is broad and shows slightly dull tropical fruit notes (think jackfruit) alongside a touch of sulfur and some minerality. The aroma profile lacks the immediacy and piercing clarity of many Australian dry Rieslings, substituting a certain rich fullness. Being critical, this lacks oomph in the upper registers, and I would have preferred greater definition. It all smells a bit lazy to me.

The palate shows more life, thanks in part to that bit of spritz, which contributes impact and a sizzled mouthfeel. Flavoursome on entry, with a mixture of citrus and tropical fruit flavours, plus a streak of more angular minerality that carries right through the middle and after palates. Good intensity and generosity for sure, though the flavour profile for me is again rather broad, suggestive of some oxidative handling, and lacking the precision and focus I admire in good Riesling. A nice, dry, minerally finish is most pleasing.

Not a bad wine, but too hazy to truly press my buttons. Still, a flavoursome drink by any measure.

Reichsrat von Buhl
Price: $A27.90
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Domaine des Nembrets Denis Barraud Pouilly-Fuissé "Sur La Roche" Vieilles Vignes 2008

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What is it about Chardonnay?

Flying back to California last Monday, I was lucky enough to score a guest pass to the ANA lounge in Tokyo airport. I was delighted to find that they had all you can drink, well, everything available, including Grace Family Vineyards koshu, which is a pretty damn good wine made from an indigenous Japanese grape that you never, ever see outside of Japan. After pouring myself a glass, I noticed a generically middle class American woman staring at my glass with a look of obvious disgust. “It’s koshu,” I said. “It’s delicious, they don’t export it, you almost never see it. Would you like to try some?” “No,” she said. “I was looking for the Chardonnay.”

Later on in the week, I received an E-mail from a male reader concerning a review of a Pouilly-Fumé I’d posted earlier in the year. “You might want to change your notes on this wine. Sauvignon Blanc not CHARDONNAY…,” it read. In short, pretty much the opposite reaction: because the review contained the word “chardonnay,” it triggered disgust that I had somehow mistaken sauv blanc for chardonnay, which of course would be a most grievous offense. After all, if you’re a sauv blanc drinkin’ kind of guy, wouldn’t you be offended if someone mistook your drink for, you know, CHARDONNAY?

As a result of all of this, I’m sitting here with a glass of Pouilly-Fuissé, partly because I want a glass, and partly because I want to somehow desperately prove that I do in fact know the difference between Fumé and Fuissé. So: about this wine…How do I know Chardonnay is a noble grape? Simple: I’ve had so many different tasting chardonnays in my life that the only other white grape that comes close is Riesling. With gewürztraminer or viognier, muscat or pinot gris, there aren’t too many surprises (I’m looking at you, Josko Gravner): you know what you’re in for. But with Chardonnay, well, you have to know more about where it came from and potentially something about who made it in order to know what you’re getting yourself into exactly. Me, I was never a great student, and although I’m pretty sure I once passed an exam where I had to explain why Chablis was different than other white Burgundy, I still can’t remember the details of all of the other appellations. Pouilly-Fuissé, Meursault, Montrachet, you name it: they’re not Chablis, so they’re probably manipulated more, but other than that? You got me. All I can do is describe this one wine.

Strikingly bright, there’s something about this wine that doesn’t look quite right to me: it’s got that dead sheen of a filtered wine. The color’s darker than Chablis, too: if anything, it reminds me of a flat German pilsener, something like Kölsch that was left out overnight. The nose is instantly appealing, with a brief suggestion of green apple quickly subsumed by bright acidity, movie theater popcorn butter (just the tiniest amount, mind you), and the warm, sunny smell of rocks and freshly washed sheets drying in the sun after being sprayed with lavender water: it’s a friendly, moderately complex nose that smells like American perfume. In short, it smells of clean.

On entry, the wine is immediately surprising, showing greater complexity than the nose would suggest. There’s an immediate suggestion of cashew butter and pear, quickly followed by apple cider, perhaps slightly oxidized notes (stupid cork!), quickly swelling to a tasteful crescendo of cream tending towards butter gently lifted by subtle oak. The texture is textbook: rich and creamy, but elegant, not overwrought. Simultaneously, there’s that sheen of incredible freshness, counterbalanced by sun-dried herbs and a curious note that frankly reminds me of those green not-quite-pickles you sometimes get in New York delis, of green youthful exuberance. The finish takes its own sweet time, oh does it ever, lazily circling through variations of spice, toast, butter, nuts, and beautifully acidic fruit.

In short, it’s damn good. The only thing that gives me pause is that I honestly do wonder if the cork’s contributing something here that it shouldn’t: I occasionally get hints of creeping oxidation that I’m not sure are intentional – but they don’t particularly dent the experience, so I really can’t complain, especially at this price.

Angullong Sauvignon Blanc 2010

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If you’re going to drink cheap Sauvignon Blanc, it had better, at the very least, be a fresh release. It had also better be characterful, a bit of a coquette perhaps, not sweet so much as fruitful, bursting with the sort of guileless enthusiasm that’s embarrassing in company but awesome when it’s just you.

Except that, when you realise that you’re kind of digging it, you begin to want to share it with friends, because something this fun seems a shame to keep to yourself. And while you’re contemplating that contradiction, the smell of it yanks you back into the land of simple enjoyment, and makes you forget thoughts of wine as a mark of sophistication, or even as something that should attract your attention for more than a brief moment. And you just sniff it for fun.

But then you notice some subtle cut grass on the nose, and a refreshingly bitter phenolic twist through the after palate. And you start to think this wine’s kind of punching above its weight, that there might be something more to it than you first thought. Come on, though, it’s a $17 Sauvignon Blanc, and it’s not even from New Zealand! Surely it can’t hope to present a coherent alternative to the instantly recognisable Marlborough style without resorting to residual sugar, hideously vulgar fruit character, or both.

You keep sniffing, and tasting, and it all goes down terribly well, especially with some mid-week fish and chips. You begin to realise this is, in some ways, the perfect quaffing wine, the success of which isn’t about avoiding angularity so much as having just enough sharpness to challenge your palate and prime your senses for enjoyment of the fruit-driven flavour profile. If you’re a complete wine tragic, you might even blog about the experience of drinking it. Then, fish and chips eaten, wine consumed, the memory of it disappears in a puff of smoke, and your overriding impression is simply of an evening enjoyed, relaxation, pleasure.

Angullong
Price: $A17
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Two Verdelhos

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Last Friday, I invited some friends over to the house so that we could open two wines, drink them together, and talk for a while about the differences between the two.

I’ll start with some background: both of these wines were Verdelho. Being a Californian (and not an Australian), Verdelho basically means absolutely nothing to me. If I hadn’t had spent so much time in Australia, I likely wouldn’t have been familiar with the grape at all: it has no role in my nation’s cultural history (whereas it absolutely does in Australia’s). The first Verdelho I ever drank was most likely something I encountered whilst on vacation in Western Australia in early 2002; they seemed to be legion, with most wineries having at least one on offer. (Capel Vale, perhaps? Dang it, I should have taken better notes.)

After nine months’ travels throughout Australia, I eventually came to know Verdelho as a generically rockin’ good time: you could count on it to taste good in a simple, pleasing manner without giving you all too much to think about, and that was just fine by me. After returning home to California, I’d occasionally see Australian Verdelho gathering dust in the “miscellaneous white wine” bin in a shop; I usually picked up a bottle, took it home, and drank it mindlessly. Thanks to a strong US dollar and the utter unfashionability of the wines, prices never hit double digits and I never grew tired of them.

As always, however, I digress. I’m here to talk about these two wines in particular: the 2009 Mollydooker The Violinist Verdelho and the 2009 Scholium Project Lost Slough Vineyards Naucratis. These are both straight varietal Verdelho from the same vintage year, albeit from opposite ends of the globe. Climactically, both wines are produced from similar geographic origins; McLaren Vale, in South Australia, is relatively warm with daily summer temperatures around 90 degrees, Clarksburg, in California, is warmer still with daily summer temperatures in the high 90s. (For you Australians, that would be 32 and 36 degrees C, respectively.) In short, nothing too dramatically different.

Soils, too, are probably not wildly different; the California wine is presumably grown on poor soil, and I imagine the Aussie wine isn’t that different either. In short, probably not hugely different either.

The major difference, then, at least superficially, would be between the two wineries. One is a spinoff (or, rather, the logical next step arising from) a once phenomenally successful Australian-American wine import business that made its name during the Bush administration importing, well, hedonistic fruit bombs; Dan Philips (and Marquis-Philips, his joint venture with the Marquis family, who became Mollydooker) had the brilliant idea of critter wines on steroids: double or triple the price of cheap and cheerful Aussie imports, but with vastly superior label design, bi-national critters (google Roogle if you’d like), and delicious, high octane, pleasurable wines that seemed just the perfect thing to serve at a megachurch BBQ celebrating to invasion of Iraq.

I will pause here for a moment and apologize for the intrusion of the political in to a nominally aesthetically oriented wine blog: one of these wines was a press sample, and God knows the generosity of the winemakers should not be abused. However, if one of the objectives of shipping samples is to potentially result in interesting ways of thinking about the wine, then I suppose they’re getting their money’s worth, even if obliquely. These sorts of wines – high alcohol, usually Shiraz, occasionally lavishly yet softly oaked – seemed to have sprung up shortly after that Mission Accomplished banner did, and it seems no mere coincidence that The Grateful Palate, Dan Philips’ importing business, ceased to exist shortly after President Obama took office and not too much longer before the cessation of combat operations in Iraq. In short, I am unfairly and hopefully amusingly positing that there is an odd synchronicity at work here between the go-go Bush years, filled with foreign policy adventuring beyond anyone’s wildest dreams, and the heyday of massive, plush, jammy, hedonistic wines (at this point, I am imagining someone with a distinctly non-West Coast accent spitting them into a football helmet on YouTube, for some reason), an odd crosstalk where one informs the other, a mad rush of consumption and decadence leading… well, I’m still not sure, exactly, except for the wines, which always, always led to massive ibuprofen consumption the morning after.

Of course, again, I digress.

The other wine, the Californian one, was produced by a small winery founded by a one-time professor from a notoriously obscurantist liberal arts college where they (shudder) still teach Aristotle… in the original Greek, no less. Again curiously coincident with the disastrous economic meltdown of 2008, his wines slowly but surely came to prominence not through glowing Wine Advocate reviews, but rather through one-off New York Times articles and general Terroir (the wine bar) fandom; most reviews I’d read were faintly reminiscent of early Dooniana , filled with remarks along the lines of “I can’t drink this, but I’m excited that it exists.” Much in the mode of recent newcomers such as Field Recordings, Abe the winemaker traveled California, hunting down vineyards that might produce interesting wines; in this case, a wine from a grape no one’s ever heard of (here, at least) from an area that’s generally as well regarded as Redfern (amusingly, the small hamlet of Woodbridge, which gave its name to an ocean of crappy wine that helped bring the Mondavi family to its doom, isn’t too far away to the south).

But again: I digress. On to the tasting notes; these are courtesy of a group of six friends. Both wines were placed in the refrigerator Thursday night and removed about forty-five minutes before tasting; we were hoping for a happy medium between “cold and doesn’t taste like anything” and “warm and tastes gross.” Wines were served in two identical glasses (Spiegelau Authentis red wine); we drank slowly, talking about these for a good half hour, before finishing up for the evening.

  • Both wines smell towards the sweet/syrupy end of the spectrum
  • This wine… well, it doesn’t quite smell like canned peaches because it doesn’t have that tinned smell to it that California viognier does. It’s kind of like viognier, but smoother, I guess.
  • This almost has kind of a sugar cane factory, cut cane, simple syrup, pineapple effect here with not much spice, just a happy go lucky sugar factory really.
  • It’s a little bit floral to me, but hard to say exactly what I’m smelling here. There might be a slight amount of spiciness to it, almost a hint of black pepper… celery salt or perhaps something slightly green there? Really hard to say.
  • Candied/salted spinach perhaps?
  • Seems hot to me.
  • Seems a much richer wine, more concentrated, perhaps even a bit of residual sugar here? Definitely very mouth filling, unctuous rich.. almost flabby. I think this might be going too far.
  • This wine seems… whiter? More like white peach than yellow peach. Some minerality here, really a striking difference. Generally more “serious” and more northern Rhône than the other one; better acidity, tighter, just a tiny bit of astringency to it.
  • Almost bitter, definite complexity on the finish, which lasts for quite a bit of time.
  • This almost has a sort of quinine note, reminiscent of bitters, which it desperately needs to give it complexity and style.
  • Strange to think these are the same grape from roughly similar climates; the simpler one has a deeper, richer yellow color, but the more complex one seems lighter, less imposing in the glass

There was, alas, one thing we all agreed on by the end of the evening: the one wine would have been just fine on its own, but it suffered by comparison with the other wine. It’s funny how things go sometimes: often, in the midst of unbridled enjoyment, it’s hard to imagine how an experience could possibly be better. I’ve personally bought both of these wines in the past – it was happy coincidence that I was given a bottle as a press sample – but having now had them simultaneously, I’m not sure I’d buy any more, especially considering that the pricing is roughly the same for the both of them.What it boiled down for me was this: I know it’s cliché to point this out, but every profoundly beautiful thing has to have a flaw – or at least something there that serves as a counterpoint, a foil, a dissonance to draw the beauty of the object in sharper, finer focus. The real reason I came away from this evening finding one wine profoundly beautiful and deeply satisfying was this: it showed restraint. Similarly high in alcohol, it seemed to have better acidity, more minerality, less residual sugar, but most of all that subtle, quinonic, bitter, savory edge that suddenly shifted it all into vibrant, ecstatic focus. You’d be hard pressed to expect more from a wine like this, especially at $20.My advice to the other winemaker? Simple: The boom years are behind us. It’s time to go beyond simple fruit ripeness, high alcohols, and straight-up appeal; it’s time to find the subtle beauty that’s probably always been there, time to experiment with phenolic aspects, time to consider the joys of Italianate bitter notes. I now know that there is Verdelho beyond the simple, fruity joys I’ve known from Australia from years; it’s there if you want it. Go for it: if you do, I’ll be there to buy it. And I’ll even go out on a limb here and groundlessly speculate: the Americans that were buying your wines in the past were probably buying them using home equity loans on houses that have already been foreclosed. The days of reckless consumption of shiny pretty wines with high point scores seem to have gone missing over the last two years; instead, we’re looking for subtlety, complexity, something with pain, something to match the anxiety and frustration we’re all feeling in these, the empty, anguished dog years after the binge of the Oughts. Give us something we can relate to; your wines remind me too much of those years where we weren’t thinking.

Mollydooker + Scholium Project
Price: $20-$26; average retail price $20
Closure: Other
Source: Sample

Best's Great Western Riesling 2010

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Riesling is one of those varieties we do especially well in Australia, and what’s exciting for me is that, in addition to the beautiful, unique Rieslings from the Clare and Eden Valleys, there are a range of other authentic styles that are either emerging (as in those from the Canberra District) or long term classics that fly under the radar. Rieslings from Western Victoria fall into the latter category for me, so it’s with some anticipation that I tasted this new release from Best’s. 

The 2009 was, from memory, a rather searing experience, but this wine is somewhat different. It’s more elaborately perfumed for starters, all florals and talc with hints of fuller, cumquat-like fruit. One could never describe the aroma as rich, but there’s a softness here that is nicely approachable. There’s a streak of minerality too that runs beneath the higher toned aromas. I can see some spritzig in the glass, which isn’t surprising for such a young wine. 
The palate shows a similar range of flavours as the nose but, given the slightly fuller notes, is surprisingly tight, and very much in the regional mode. Entry is driven by minerality before lime blossom and citrus rind thicken the middle palate. Acidity is full-on to say the least, aided by some light spritz and a flavour profile that remains angular along the line, but offset by a nicely rounded mouthfeel on the after palate. I don’t think the palate structure is hanging together quite yet and feel some time in the bottle will help things to cohere. The finish is delicate, mostly minerals and flowers. 
Nice wine. Give this a few months then tuck in! 

Best’s Wines
Price: $A22
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Scarborough Blue Label Chardonnay 2009

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Though just as generously flavoursome as its Yellow Label sibling, this wine is made in quite a different style, more aligned to the contemporary idiom. There’s no new oak, its fruit is crisp and fresh, its complexity apparently lees-derived with only partial malolactic fermentation.

The nose is crisp, flinty aromas overlaying white nectarine and some funk, possibly sulfurous in nature. Its impact is savoury and rather chiselled; this doesn’t present as an especially buxom style. But there’s a nice depth to the aroma that prevents it from being an exclusively high toned aroma profile.

The palate shows some richer fruit alongside a continuation of the nose’s savouriness. Entry is very flavoursome, an initially crisp mouthfeel becoming glossier and fuller towards the middle palate. A nice array of fruit flavours fans out here; there’s citrus and peach in equal measure, with just a hint of butterscotch. Mouthfeel is especially interesting, showing good texture and detail in a contradictorily soft package. A fresh herbal twang asserts through the after palate. The finish is sharp and lengthy.

An attractive style, well executed and priced.

Scarborough
Price: $A19
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Scarborough Yellow Label Chardonnay 2007

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Chardonnay, let alone Hunter Chardonnay, is hardly at the vanguard of vinous fashion, so one could be forgiven for greeting this Scarborough wine a shrug. It pays to remember, though, the Hunter has a special place in the history of Australian Chardonnay, and continues to be the home of two of Australia’s more sought after peaches: the Lake’s Folly white and Tyrrell’s Vat 47. Scarborough is something of a Chardonnay specialist, having earned an enviable reputation for this varietal, so I approached this wine with high expectations.

The nose is fresh and clean, showing aromas of butter, peach, a little bit of minerality, perhaps a herbal twang and some smokey toast. Complex, then, but its buttery balance speaks more of enjoyment than analysis. I like that the oak is subdued, the wine appearing to rely more on fruit character and other forms of winemaking input (some lees work, I suspect) to achieve its aroma profile.

The palate takes a step up in expressiveness, being quite rich and full-flavoured. Entry is strikingly flavoursome, a nice spectrum of peach, citrus and butter notes caressing the tongue and paving the way for a middle palate that is quite flooded with fruit. The flavours are very clean at this point, showing good definition and shape, supported by easygoing acidity. I feel this wine’s textural dimension, though, isn’t quite balanced, being too reticent and consequently somewhat overwhelmed by the fullness of the fruit flavour. I’d like to feel a bit more mealiness on my tongue on the mid-palate, which would add more sophistication to the palate structure. The after palate does offer a bit more in this regard, and this helps carry the wine through a finish that seemed a bit hot to me.

Lovely fruit here, made in a gloriously unfashionable style that I admit to enjoying more often than not. It’s not over the top, simply generous and warm. Very well priced.

Scarborough
Price: $A21
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Field Recordings Jurassic Park Vineyard Chenin Blanc 2008

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Look, I know I really shouldn’t be saying this, but I’m sure we can all admit that we’re innately predisposed to like certain wines and not others – and that before having ever even tasted them. The name alone of this wine makes me smile: as an old school music nerd, I’ve got plenty of CDs around that are, well, field recordings: right now, I’m listening to Keith Fullerton Whitman’s Dartmouth Street Underpass just, you know, because.

The packaging of the wine is beautiful: beautiful typography, very fresh and clean, and the overall vibe is that of a winemaker who is content to get out of the way and let the wine be itself: fine by me. Heck, even the wine itself appears cloudy, unfiltered: if your idea of vinuous beauty is liquid that looks more like an agricultural product than lemon crush, then you’re in excellent territory here.

Speaking of territory, it’s always delightful to see lieux-dit on the label: there seems to be a growing trend of bottling wines with labels that emphasize where they’re from and not “what they are” (in a varietal sense), and I think that’s pretty awesome as well. The overall effect is undeniably kinda awesome; I would expect to see this on Terroir’s wine list before the year’s up… but of course only if the wine itself measures up.

Does it? Thankfully yes. Beautifully textured, displaying golden yellow clouds in the manner of fresh cider, the wine smells of chalky gravel, fresh lemon zest, and neroli. It also smells very wine-like in a way few New World wines tend to: it’s got a real edge of steely austerity to it as well, smelling less like primary fruit and more like a Serious Adult Beverage.

Texturally the wine tends towards medium weight, with not much haptic impact. Stylistically it reminds me more of oaked South African chenin blanc than it does of anything French – there’s something in the texture that’s reminiscent of lees – but there’s no obvious oak here at all, so my guess is that it saw bâtonnage but no new oak.

The experience of a drink of this is exceptional at this price point. It begins with a calm, almost barley water-like note, backed by forceful acidity, before fattening out in the midpalate to be almost Meursault-like, with suggestions of hazelnut and cream, before slinking away into a soft, gentle, lengthy finish with an almost-bitter edge to it. It’s a beautiful thing, lovely to drink, and I’ve replayed it a dozen times just now, marveling at the experience.

Best of all, I distinctly get the feeling that the winemaker’s input here was indeed minimal: there’s no obvious chicanery going on here, just good wine made from good grapes grown in a good place. I don’t believe I’ve ever had an American chenin blanc this good before; here’s hoping he’s able to not only make more in the future, but that it finds the audience (and market) it so richly deserves.

Field Recordings
Price: $15
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Champalou Vouvray Sec Tendre 2008

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I had a glass of this with a friend and some friendly pork rillettes. Not sure of the match, but the wine was very enjoyable, if initially served way too cold.

The nose is quiet at first, evolving to show ripe apple flesh and a sharp, detailed minerality that elevates and organises the whole aroma profile. There’s also a sense of sea breezes here, a light brine influence that I find tantalising and quite visual.

Nothing on the subtle nose flags the dramatic intensity of the palate, though. Instant impact on entry, this wine doesn’t hold its apple and lemon fruit flavours back at all. There is plenty going on if you value complexity; for such a young and relatively affordable wine, I’m impressed by the array of citrus rind flavours, moving between floral and fleshy then back again. There’s also an architecture of minerals here, contesting and ultimately overpowering the fruit, though the effect isn’t nearly as brutal as my words might suggest. Acidity is quite sensational, zipping things along and remaining a firm influence right along the line. The impression is crystalline, precise and driven; flavour, sure, but this wine’s strength is more figurative. Loved it.

Champalou
Price: $A40
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Eroica Riesling 2002

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After patiently waiting seven years, I now have an answer to a simple question: Is this wine any better with age on it?

No.

What was a beautiful, moderately complex, refreshing Washington state riesling in its youth is now a moderately complex aged riesling with notes of tarry white peaches, white flowers, slate, stone, and nowhere near enough acidity to balance the wine, alas. If less successful Clare riesling tends to be not quite sweet enough when it ages, then this wine is a different side of a similar coin: although there’s just enough residual sugar here to work with aged riesling notes, there isn’t enough acidity to balance it out (event though I do detect some acidity here). It’s just too soft, somewhat flabby, and a disappointment (although better than a Chehalem riesling from Oregon that I tried earlier in the week; that one only had six years on it, but it had sadly become flabbier than your average Outback Steakhouse patron).

Thanks to Terroir wine bar in New York, I now know that New York riesling can age. So: where are the Left Coast rieslings that can survive a decade?

Chateau Ste Michelle

Price: $20
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail