Category Archives: White

Moppity Vineyards Chardonnay 2008

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Though this producer is based in Hilltops, the fruit for this wine was sourced from Tumbarumba. Curious region. It would have to be one of our lower profile regions, yet carries a reputation for exceptional Chardonnay (amongst other things), its fruit often ending up in premium Penfolds table wines, for example. It’s a beautiful part of the world too, and part of me wonders how special a destination it might become should a critical mass of cellar doors ever be achieved. I can think of worse places to visit.

Anyway, to the wine itself, which is a good rendition of lean Chardonnay in a contemporary Australian idiom. I thought at first sniff it was quite worked, and it’s true there’s some winemaking going on, but as I’ve continued to smell this, its fruit has come to the fore, pushing past some mealy and lightly oaked flavours. There’s white nectarine and a bit of grapefruit mostly, clean and fleshy.
The palate shows impressive power; it’s at this stage I am prompted to reflect on the price of this wine and conclude there’s an awful lot of value here. Real thrust onto the tongue, with preserved lemons and stonefruit flowing freely, followed quickly by some higher toned flavours, including roasted nuts and oatmeal. The point is, it’s coherent and strong, with good presence in the mouth and a real sense of dashing and style. There’s perhaps a lack of subtlety, an absence of light and shade, that separates this from the next tier of wines. But what’s here is so convincing, it’s hard not to enjoy.
A really worthwhile wine.

Moppity Vineyards
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Patina Pinot Gris 2008

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I’m shallow and pretentious; there’s no other explanation for leaving this wine untouched at the bottom of the sample pile for so long. In my defense, some kind of filter is more or less a necessity when there’s so much wine out there; one can’t simply taste it all. And if I instinctively gravitate towards varieties and regions I am experienced with and attracted to, is this really so wrong? 

It is if I miss out on nice wines. This bottle is a lesson in something unexpected (Pinot Gris d’Orange?) turning out to be bloody good. Perhaps not so unexpected, though; Orange has been steadily working its way towards some serious cool climate cred over the past few years, and Pinot Gris is a variety I usually prefer to drink when made into a wine that retains some elegance and shape. Add some clever winemaking and you’re almost there.
The rest comes through on tasting. The aroma is full and lush, with a sharp edge of citrus helping notes of subtle oatmeal and stonefruit to express with fresh vitality. There’s real complexity and depth to this wine’s smell, which is both unexpected and fascinating. I’m not used to tasting a reasonably-priced Pinot Gris with such character. It’s reads as an odd combination of Hunter Semillon and slighty busty Chardonnay, but with its own sense of integrity.
On entry, an immediate rush of fruit flavour and a level of intensity that confirms the nose isn’t a fluke. Flavours are simple and citrus-driven at first, building towards a lees-influenced middle palate that takes several steps up in sophistication. While it’s a bit of a sledgehammer of a wine, and its fruit flavours show a little too much sweetness for my taste, there’s good detail in its flavour profile and several layers to its texture. Mealy stonefruit peaks through the after palate, and the finish is impressively long.
What a pleasant surprise. Went exceptionally well with a simple omelette of ocean trout and goat’s cheese.

Patina
Price: $A22
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Vinoterra Mtsvane 2005

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I have never, ever seen a wine of this particular color before. This is an ungodly shade of sherry-peach-cream that I had no idea was possible outside of a 1970s makeup counter. Honestly, I’m surprised. Just when you think you’ve seen and drunk it all comes something completely outside and unthinkable to surprise you.I would have expected some oxidation on the nose given the color; instead, I get something like toffee and walnuts… for a moment until that tell-tale Sherry-like smells kicks in too. There are also wildly varying notes of cold cream, fine leather gloves, and cucumber. Overall, it has the effect of suggesting an English garden complete with ladies enjoying a cream tea: all kinds of curious, elegant smells suggesting flowers, finger sandwiches, kid leather, and freshly washed faces. Bizarre, I know, but honest: I’m not ridiculously far off the mark here.Relatively light at first, the flavor quickly solidifies in the mouth, showing slight oxidative notes as well as what feels like moderate tannin. However, things change up in the middle of palate, suddenly broadening out into tea roses, Brazil nuts, macadamia, and burnt cream. Although not a big wine (there is neither residual sugar nor noticeable alcohol), it nevertheless feels serious, solid, and frankly a bit like homework: the noticeable tannin prevents a sense of freshness and all of the fine aromatics on the nose are lost in the kerthunk of the wine driving its point home. However, there is also a fairly unbelievable suggestion of violet-encrusted strawberries, somehow, hiding in there among the oxidative notes and tannins. In short, I have absolutely no idea what the hell is going on here. If there was ever a wine so complex as to be bewildering, then it’s probably this one: my only real complaint is that there are so many things going on here and yet so few of them seem to belong in the same bottle.If this wine were a perfume, it would be Odeur 53 by Comme des Garçons: truly, this is remarkable, but drinking it is feeling awfully postmodern somehow. Serve with lavender crème brûlée, Marcona almonds, macaroons, and a bowl of Corn Pops. Why not?   Vinoterra
Price: $20
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Petaluma Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2005

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Q: What do you do in the event of an earthquake?A: Well, if you’re me, you quickly check to make sure none of the wine fell over and broke (it didn’t) and then grab the first bottle you can find to calm your nerves.Thanks to the vagaries of the international wine trade, the local bottle shop had a dozen of these for a meager $14 a couple of months back. Sadly, the first two bottles were corked and nonrefundable, but this one appears intact.Not visibly old at all – it still looks bright and clean – the nose tells quite another story, with hazelnuts, burnt matchsticks, and pineapple clotted cream cake coming together to suggest a wine that’s been around for a few years. Rich, unctuous, and ever so slightly overwhelming (think California style) in the mouth, there’s a thick seam of rich, buttery pear and roasted nuts to be found here. The finish is plenty long, with just enough acidity to make it easy-going enough to please most anyone, I reckon. In short, this would be the ideal wine to serve in Qantas business class: rich, stuffed with enough flavor to register at even thirty thousand feet, and fat enough to please folks who don’t enjoy their wine unless it’s got a certain sense of luxurious, hedonistic plushness to it.The only thing I am is surprised: I love Petaluma’s riesling and viognier, both of which are wonderfully expressive and full of character – and yet this wine seems a bit vague (in the international style, at least). It doesn’t compare well, I think. to the Grosset chardonnay (which is presumably made from fruit from the same general area)… but it is at least a surefire crowd pleaser. Shame about the dead tree stopper, though. Petaluma
Price: $14
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Howard Park Riesling 2009

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It’s endlessly contested, but beauty (if it exists at all) is something I search for in wine as in most things. Perhaps that marks me as profoundly romantic, or foolish, but if something so inessential, so essentially frivolous as wine doesn’t encapsulate an aesthetic of a kind, then I really do wonder the point of it at all. Hence my difficult relationship with wines that express themselves on a purely functional level – I’d rather drink beer. 

Riesling is a varietal that gets me excited because it sometimes reminds me, more than any other wine, of perfume. I, along with my excellent co-author Chris, are fans of fragrance, and Riesling, in its expressive austerity, comes closest to the manufactured landscapes of man-made smells. Which is quite remarkable, really, as a commercial smell is carefully crafted, layered and assembled to be both distinctive and reproducible; one might reasonably assume a relatively haphazard aroma like that of wine would never come close. Yet it does, to my delight and endless fascination.
This wine isn’t perfect, but it has a sense of construction and layered complexity that excites me. The aroma is awash with high toned, aldehydic aromas that echo the extravagant top notes of an old-fashioned, French whorehouse-type cologne. There are some deeper, lemon rind notes underneath the florals that provide an anchor of sorts, something fleshier around which more fleeting aromas can circle.
The palate is quite generous and, compared to some Howard Park Rieslings I recall from the late 1990s, much less austerely acidic. This isn’t such a bad thing, especially for present drinking. There’s a dramatic but cuddly entry onto the palate, followed by a wash of soft lime juice through the mid-palate. It’s a bit lazy, but it’s also very pretty, content to be admired for its easy charm. A tangy after palate and long finish round things off well.

Howard Park
Price: $A22
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Yalumba Viognier Eden Valley 2008

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Wonderfully refreshing and complex, this is miles away from the screechingly acidic honeysuckle toffee you so often get in viognier at this price point. Glowing golden green in the glass, I suddenly found myself remembering what it was like to lick buttercream frosting off of the metal stand mixer beaters when I was young: there’s a brief, sharp flash of alloyed brightness that quickly folds itself into a lusciously textured, lemon-rind and salt water taffy hugeness that is barely contained within a hulkingly big, disproportionately sized wine that thankfully stops just this side of gaucheness. On the nose, the aromatics remind me of Osage orange and bitter white flowers; there’s also a subtle hint of freshly churned butter as well as a suggestion of something akin to marjoram.I’m very impressed with this wine, but I will that it stops just short of greatness: there’s some tension in the outsize-osity of the finish that is uncomfortably close to a beer gut spilling over the waist of daggy polyester trousers, I’d say. For all of the wine’s charms, it could do with a bit less ripeness, a bit less flab, and a bit more minerality – but still, could you possibly have expected better for the price?Yalumba
Price: $13
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Schloss Lieser Niederberg Helden Riesling Spätlese 2007

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I chilled this wine in preparation for last night’s salmon dinner, but we didn’t get around to drinking it. So it came out tonight instead, was asked to partner chicken, and did so with aplomb.

It had to blow off a fair bit of sulfur first, mind you. Quite prickly and stinky for a few minutes, leading to a much cleaner, rather candied expression of yellow fruits and citrus, along with a hint of cheese. There’s a nice streak of savouriness too, minerality I guess, that cuts through the rich fruit aromas. It’s not exactly slick; rather, it’s a dressed up country cousin of a wine — attractive and neat, but roundly wholesome too.
Great presence in the mouth.  Entry is quite tingly and full-flavoured, leading to a middle palate of significant proportions and generous intensity. There’s a degree of formlessness to the fruit flavours, which detracts a little from the precision of other components like the firmish acidity and mineral edginess. A chalky mouthfeel tightens the after palate, cleaning up a slight excess of sweetness and laziness of form, before a nice long finish fades slowly on the tongue.
Not bad at all, then. I like the interplay of sweet, almost crackly fruit with adult savouriness and delicious texture. A touch more focus would make this even better.

Schloss Lieser
Price: $A49.95
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Braided River Wairau Valley Sauvignon Blanc 2009

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I’ve had some interesting conversations over the last couple of weeks on the merits (or otherwise) of writing up straightforward, commercial wines. There’s no arguing the relevance; this wine is available pretty much everywhere, and as a consumer I’m just as interested as the next snob in reading a bit about what I might buy. But as a writer, my issue is that, more often than not, they provoke no reaction. They are exactly what I think they will be, and where’s the fun in that?

Absolutely regional aroma, showing typical passionfruit and light cut grass. Say what you will about Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc; there’s no denying it stands out like dog’s balls in a line up, and I’d argue this demonstrates inherent merit in the style, taste notwithstanding. This one is quite soft, though, some Vaseline on the lens obscuring the harsh angularity that can be an issue in some examples.
The palate is correct, but is marred for my taste by an excess of apparent sweetness. No doubt I’m in the minority here; this is exceptionally well-judged in its attempt to alienate no-one, and on one view there are few higher compliments one could pay a commercial style. In the mouth, soft and almost cuddly, with accessible citrus and passionfruit flavours expressed with watercolour imprecision. No great length, no great surprises.
What you see is what you get.

Braided River
Price: $A18.99
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Reinhold Haart Piesport Goldtröpfchen Kabinett 2007

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I’ve been a bit slow in tasting my stash of 2007 German Rieslings so, this evening, as I enjoy the company of a great friend, I have opened this Kabinett-level wine from the Mosel. 

Opulent richness on the nose, beyond what one might expect for this ripeness level, along with some prickly sulfur and a hint of minerality. Fruit aromas are in the apricot spectrum and lack the vibrant freshness of brand new Riesling; to be expected, perhaps, given the age of the wine. I’m swirling this wine vigorously as I feel it will benefit from some air; a decant wouldn’t be out of the question. There’s an intriguing savouriness to the aroma profile that is becoming more prominent as the wine sits in glass; it’s somewhere between pebbles and the smell of juicy, smashed weeds. 
In the mouth, full-flavoured without being overly intense. The entry sneaks up on you, building towards a rather bling middle palate full of slightly simple apricot and rich lemons. There’s a broadness to the flavours and structure that isn’t entirely attractive, though there’s plenty of flavour, so one always has a lot to latch on to. Minerality takes over through the after palate, and the flavour profile becomes a lot dryer towards the nicely textured finish. Unremarkable length.
I wish this wine were more focused and that flavours showed greater detail; as it is, a very pleasant off-dry white.

Reinhold Haart
Price: $A46.95
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Sorrenberg Chardonnay 2008

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Dinner with family in Melbourne on Friday evening was enhanced by the provision of this bottle. Thanks to my cousin Travis — who continues the Coldrey line as far as an obsession with wine is concerned — for his generosity in supplying all the evening’s drinks. My first Sorrenberg Chardonnay and I’m favourably impressed.
A powerful, worked style that, in the first instance, is most notable for the richness of its fruit flavours. Nectarine, fig and some grapefruit all intermingle within an aroma that also throws a range of caramel and oatmeal notes. There’s significant complexity and scale, but the confident, seductive aromas themselves are what draw me to this wine.
The palate follows through on all aspects of the nose, showing a forthright, complex range of flavours. Good presence and consistency along the entire line. A couple of points, then. Firstly, this isn’t a wine for those fixated on the current vogue for lean Chardonnay styles. The lushness and luxe inherent to the fruit and style are quite contrary to a more minerally, austere expression of Chardonnay. And that’s OK. Secondly, this is a wine to sip and savour, not necessarily to drink in large volumes. Certainly, I helped my dinner companions to finish our bottle with ease. But as I drank more, a cracked toffee note through the back palate became slightly dominant, pushing fruit and savoury characters out of the way to the detriment of the wine’s overall balance. Still, a minor quibble over what is an impressive wine of some beauty.Sorrenberg
Price: $NA
Closure: Cork
Source: Gift