Category Archives: White

Cherubino The Yard Riversdale Vineyard Riesling 2012

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While in Great Southern last year, I didn’t get to taste all that I wanted to. In particular, the entire Cherubino range remained unknown to me, mostly due to the absence of anything I could find resembling a cellar door. I’ve been curious about these wines for a while though, so I went ahead and ordered a few to taste. This, from a sub-range designed to highlight single vineyards throughout Western Australia, is the first.

One anticipates a certain austerity, combined with delicious fruit flavours, when it comes to Great Southern Riesling, and this wine is in the main line of regional style. The aroma contains as much boulder dust as it does lime blossom, which creates an immediately savoury, and slightly funky, impression. At the moment, because of the relative dominance of mineral aromas, there’s no easy way in, but it’s an impressively taut performance, and one that doesn’t sacrifice aromatic body in the service of clarity.

In the mouth, even more tight than the nose suggests, with a dashing line of acid that carries flavours, and one suspects a few particles of cheek lining, straight to the back of the palate. Despite this structure, it’s not a thin wine, and I like the flesh this carries, noting that its body consists mostly of savoury, mineral flavours rather than anything more approachably fruity. A clean jet of lemon juice through the finish is its most obvious fruit note.

This uncompromising flavour and structure makes the whole slightly hard work as a young wine, but it all points to some productive time in bottle. I’ll be retasting in about five years, I reckon.

Note: three days on and the wine is just starting to open out on the palate. Plenty of juicy, attractive fruit. Nice wine, if quite masculine in style.

Cherubino Wines
Price: $25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Swinging Bridge Mrs Payten Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2012

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I want to love every wine I taste. It seems to me there’d be no greater pleasure for a wine enthusiast than to find in each wine, familiar or not, a world of pleasure and revelation. Wines that fall short, then, aren’t just less enjoyable, they’re a little bit heartbreaking too.

Wines often brashly flash their most prominent assets — single vineyard! old vines! French oak! — and why not? In this age of obligatory opinions, snap judgements and forced rankings, producers must surely feel they are putting their wines into the vinous equivalent of a speed dating night, if not a boxing ring. You’ve got mere seconds to establish credibility and generate an attraction. So I don’t begrudge the, of late, spectacular proliferation of single vineyard wines in Australia. I will note, though, that a single vineyard wine, for me, creates a certain expectation. Of distinctiveness perhaps, and quality too, something worth singling out. I approach this wine, then, with heightened anticipation.

So as it presents as slightly blurry, without sufficient articulation of and insight into the flavours it obviously has, I feel frustrated by the opaque view it gives me of its raison d’être – the vineyard from which it came. It’s far from generic tasting, and there are some funky flavours atop fruit that veers between ripe pineapple and much more nuanced, savoury citrus. There are also darker notes that speak of lees and a certain minerality. But there’s a dull edge to the whole that, for me, obscures each component. Structure is relaxed, robbing the wine of tension and fattening its mid-palate, although I do like the chalky texture through the finish. There’s also a lack of intensity to the fruit, making the wine feel like it’s playing too quietly to get me moving. I just want more — more intensity, more definition, more overt distinctiveness. I want this wine to sing its vineyard, so I can hear its colours and enjoy its view.

It might fairly accuse me of not being a good listener; I’m just a bit sad about what we could’ve been, this wine and me.

Swinging Bridge
Price: $32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben Ürzig Würzgarten Riesling trocken 2007

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I could enjoy writing up German wines almost entirely because of their wonderfully extended names. This wine, from Mosel-based producer Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben, is a dry Riesling made from Ürzig Würzgarten fruit. Because I was located in Wehlen during the 2013 vintage, my tasting naturally focused on wines from the Wehlener Sonnenuhr, Graacher Domprobst and Graacher Himmelreich vineyards. I never made it around the bend to Ürzig, which is a shame because its wines carry a reputation and I would have liked to have gotten to know the area. There’s always next time, I suppose.

In the meantime, I can at least taste the wines. The nose is showing some age at this stage, with a hint of harsh kerosene over dominant notes of preserved lemon and minerals. This wine smells cold and chiselled, not precise so much as hard and masculine. I really like the depth of minerality on the nose, although I do feel it’s quite unyielding too. In the mouth, a fairly dry experience with phenolics bringing up the rear and adding plenty of texture. Flavours remain in the sour lemon, mineral and toast spectrum. Acid is quite prominent and combines with the wine’s dry extract to create a powdery mid- and after-palate. Reasonable length.

What’s here seems correct for the style, and it’s definitely showing signs of age without any sense of tiredness. I do wish for a bit less affront, though; there’s precious little fruit weight to dig into, and the wine rests mostly on its austerity and angles. One for purists.

Joh. Jos. Christoffel Erben
Price: N/A
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Gift

Clonakilla Riesling 2013

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I’m partial to a good Canberra Riesling, and the Clonakilla version tends to be pretty reliable. No wonder I’ve ended up with a bit too much in my cellar. Nice problem to have, I guess. Still, it remains a mystery to me how I can like a variety so much and drink it so little. Perhaps Riesling is the cauliflower of the wine world. To me, at least.

This isn’t the subtlest of wines right now. As it currently presents, there are powerful citrus rind and floral aromas that overlay some slatey subtleties. It’s a forthright, savoury aroma that shows this variety’s manlier side, as if the aroma has been carved from a solid block Riesling Flavour. Still, a valid style and one that has a lot of impact.

In the mouth, all that the nose promises. This is piercingly acidic, a fact underlined by strands of mineral-slate flavour that drag the wine into some pretty serious territory. Over the top, more lemon rind and powdery flowers. If I’ve a criticism of the wine as it stands now, it’s that the flavour presents as rather too emphatic and a bit shouty, which makes for some pretty tough drinking. I doubt this is at its best, though, and I think as an aged wine it will be considerably more pleasurable.

Clonakilla
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Stefano Lubiana Black Label Riesling 2012

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Now we’re talking. This wine, made from estate grapes grown biodynamically, is also the product of several purposeful winemaking choices: the grapes were crushed, some skin contact allowed, fermentation occurred in French oak puncheons, all this followed by six months of lees contact. All of these techniques will typically create texture and weight, as well as the development of some secondary flavours, facts that are easy to discern when tasting this wine.

The aroma is flinty and tight, with notes of citrus flower and stone dust overlaying hints of richer fruit flavour. I like the sense this wine gives of not yielding too easily; flint and smoke give the aroma profile a real blade, and it never entirely gives way to a sense of softness. Nice tension indeed.

In the mouth, a story of texture and fruit ripeness. This has plenty of flavour. Indeed, the mid-palate swells with rich candied citrus peel and luscious fresh juice, yet it is preceded by a taut entry and followed by swathes of savoury texture through the after palate, dusty and rough like a well-used walking trail at the height of Summer. Earthy, musky notes float through before the finish reverts to lemon juice and chalk. It’s a curious narrative, moving as it does from such fullness to such angularity, yet I appreciate how each taste tells a story that covers such ground.

A pretty unconventional style in Australian terms, but those who enjoy texture, or who have already acquired a taste for Alsatian Riesling, needn’t hesitate. Cellar door only.

Stefano Lubiana
Price: $A32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Leasingham Bin 7 Cellar Selection Riesling 2000

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I’ve been steering clear of Riesling since my return from the Mosel. Not that I’m sick of it; indeed, quite the opposite. I enjoyed the Rieslings there so much I’ve been hesitant to dive back into different expressions of the grape. For my return foray, I opened this, an older wine and one that I’ve documented here on Full Pour in the past.

As with my tasting in 2008, this bottle had a Stelvin cap that was fairly welded onto the bottle. It shed a fair bit of crust once I finally wrangled the thing loose. You’d never know it from the condition of the wine, though, which was pristine and youthful.

Shockingly youthful, in fact. Clearly, wines do develop under screwcap (let us not even entertain the contrary notion), but if this wine is any indication they can age slowly, gracefully and cleanly. I don’t regard any of these attributes as bad; indeed the wine exploded from my glass with a mixture of fresh and tertiary aromas. Lime, toast, honey, spice; a range of notes that are both totally correct and very fine. I’ve tasted some Australian Rieslings that showed an unattractive broadness in middle age; this, though, is still tight and linear, even as its developed flavours express.

In the mouth, still taut with acid and lean of line. I don’t imagine this was one of those especially intense wines as a youngster, which translates to a fairly gentle experience now in terms of impact and density of flavour. Unlike the Elizabeth Semillon I had the other day, this wine’s lack of intensity sits better within its style. This is about lightness of countenance and delicacy above all else.

Welcome back.

Leasingham
Price: N/A
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 1999

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It’s been a surprisingly restrained Christmas chez Coldrey; numbers of both people and wine are slightly down on last year, so I’ve made it out the other side with my liver relatively intact. Of the bottles we did open, a theme seemed to emerge, that being old Australian white wines.

This was one of them. It’s been a few years since I had a bottle, and I see from my last note there’s been some variation in the condition of each bottle. Happily, this one was in excellent condition, sealed by a tight, clean cork. Considering I paid about $12 for it, it’s ageing remarkably well, gaining some additional flavours and softening ever so slightly in mouthfeel. It’s not, however, gaining intensity and, if this wine disappoints at all, it’s due to an impression of slightly dilute fruit. Aged notes, attractive as they are, haven’t yet filled in the gaps, and I don’t know if they ever will.

Even as one notes this about the wine, it remains a nice example of the style, with a set of flavours that is absolutely typical and an acid line that grants focus and precision to the palate. Honey and toast are in evidence and sit alongside primary fruit, with hints of the lovely waxy flavour and mouthfeel lovers of these wines crave. It’s pretty, light and starting to glow with bottle age. Bottles in good condition could no doubt be left for several more years.

McWilliams Mount Pleasant
Price: $A12
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Oakridge 864 Willowlake Chardonnay 2012

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There’s an interesting conceptual tension at play with this wine. The Oakridge range is structured, at the high end, around ideas of vineyard differentiation, terroir and the progressively more precise identification of sites and blocks of special interest. A highly Burgundian view of wine, then, and one that is certainly au courant in the Australian wine scene.

The wine itself is, simply, spectacular. It’s surely one of the best Australian Chardonnays I’ve tasted in a long while, and blasts into one’s palate memory through a combination of balance, impossibly fine detail and the sort of good taste that speaks of highly attentive winemaking. The flavour profile mixes crystalline fruit with a whole heap of prickly sulphides and other funk, which sounds like modern Chardonnay gone wrong but which, in fact, comes across as an utterly coherent collection of notes. It’s the clarity and detail of the wine that really allow each element to shine. Rarely are flavours articulated with such precision and placement. It’s a controlled experience from head to toe, with only a flash of lemon juice flavour and acid on the after palate standing out as somewhat separate and simple.

The complex rush of flavours and sense this wine gives of having been orchestrated brings us back to its origins as a single-block-within-a-single-vineyard wine, one that by its nature might suggest a fashionable minimising of intervention in the winery. This is anything but a hands-off wine, though; it’s one made in a very specific style, using obviously beautiful fruit and applying a series of winemaking techniques with real skill and a very firm view of how Chardonnay should taste. This is a wine of its maker as much as of its vineyard and, in being so, honestly engages the reality of winemaking: it doesn’t just happen on its own. I can’t help but think this is a far more intricate and interesting view of wine than one where the role of either the vineyard or the winemaker is pushed into the background. This Oakridge wine, delicious as it is, is a veritable narrative of the way people and nature collide in the course of making wine.

Fascinating.

Oakridge Wines
Price: $A75
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Gift

Hoddles Creek Chardonnay 2006

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Who’d have thought I’d be revisiting an $18 Chardonnay from 2006 with such curiosity and enthusiasm? Such is the state of Chardonnay in Australia. A golden age of sorts, led at the entry level by this label amongst others. The Hoddles Creek Chardonnay (and its Pinot Noir sibling) has quickly become the sort of “must purchase” wine beloved by wine enthusiasts of good taste and limited means (that surely covers most of us). I’ve visited with this wine on a few occasions, two of which I’ve documented on Full Pour (in 2007 and subsequently in 2011). Here we go for a third time.

The lean character of this wine has remained pretty constant over its life so far, and this tasting reveals a wine that in some respects hasn’t moved much since my first tasting. It’s worth pausing to reflect on the fact this is a cheap wine in absolute terms; that it still has life at this point is in itself remarkable. There are some tertiary flavours for sure — honeycomb and nuts mostly — but the wine retains plenty of primary freshness and white stonefruit flavours.

Where it isn’t evolving so much is in weight and opulence; I wondered on previous tastings whether it might gain some weight, and at this stage it seems destined to retain its linear, quite driven movement through the mouth for a while yet. Will it ever become an expansive wine? I’m not sure; in any case, there are plenty of other Chardonnays to satiate that particular craving. A more interesting question is whether its fruit is starting to fall away here; it does seem to lack that last ounce of intensity, and I don’t recall whether it provided greater impact and flavour in previous tastings. In any case, it has a poise right now that flows from a nicely resolved structure and flavour pitched at a moderate level of intensity.

For my taste, I’d like an ounce more generosity, something the flavour profile suggests but never quite gets around to delivering. Still, that’s probably a question of taste more than quality; certainly, this is a striking, important wine in terms of contemporary Australian Chardonnay.


Hoddles Creek
Price: $A18
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Retail

Bloodwood Chardonnay 2010

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I like it when wines surprise me, whether it’s a matter of quality or, as with this wine, by showing unexpected dimensions that lift it beyond what I initially believe it to be. This wine, from relatively old vines in the Orange region, is one of two produced by Bloodwood. The other, labelled Schubert, seems intended to be the more outré in style (I’ve not tasted it).

Orange tends to cool climate due to the elevation of its vineyards, so it’s no surprise the aroma here is in a fairly restrained mode, with white rather than yellow stonefruit and aromas tending towards taut flintiness. It’s firmly fruit-driven, though, and quite straightforward as a result.

The palate is what surprises me about this wine. On the basis of the nose, I expected a straightforward flavour profile and equally simple mouthfeel, but this really takes off, texturally. On entry, it slips and slides with stonefruit, but from the mid-palate onwards a nice, raspy mouthfeel creeps in, along with a corresponding tightening of flavour profile, such that the wine ends up expressing tangy aniseed and a sea spray freshness alongside its bright fruit. That salty-sweet tang echoes the addictive qualities of something like Dutch licorice and strikes me quite distinctive. It’s a nice story on the palate and helps this wine to be both more refreshing and more delicious.

Bloodwood
Price: $A27
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample