Tag Archives: 2006

Dowie Doole Tintookie Chenin Blanc 2006

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Considered in conventional terms, a more serious wine than its sibling, though to my mind this is an entirely different conversation from whether it’s better or worse. Indeed, I’m on the record as preferring many “second label” wines to their reserve partners, as what constitues a “reserve” wine for some producers strikes me as most unimaginative. Throwing oak, extract and a general exaggeratedness of scale at something does not automatically make a better or more worthy wine. Dowie Doole’s Tintookie poses the question of reserve wines rather differently. For a start, it’s made from Chenin Blanc, so the template for its elevated status isn’t so obvious as some. Indeed, what does a reserve Chenin Blanc look like in the Australian context?

According to Dowie Doole, it has a whole lot more winemaking for starters, and a price tag to match (though still rather reasonable when placed in context — this is a single vineyard wine made from seriously old vines). Interestingly, my initial reaction on smelling this wine was that it shares some characteristics with aged Hunter Semillon; specifically, a cheesy note along with a bit of toasty development. First impressions are where such similarities end, though. There’s marked minerality on the nose, along with high toned citrus and a general sense of control. I’m not sure that it smells terribly similar to its Loire models, but that’s a good thing in my book. This is its own wine.
The palate shows quite full, intense fruit flavours that nonetheless sit within a tight, textural, minerally context. Good impact on entry with immediate flavour and mouth-watering (natural) acidity. Bursting forth from this framework is juicy, slightly simple citrus fruit on the middle palate, almost painfully intense, and for me a little at odds with the restraint and complexity shown elsewhere. A lovely dry, textural after palate leads to a long, flinty and quite beautiful finish.
This is a really fascinating wine, though I’m not sure it coheres as a style from top to bottom. I am wishing for a more extreme expression of the fruit, less luscious and more ethereal, which I suspect would complement the character of the acid and the textural inputs. Perhaps some further bottle age is what I’m really looking for. A really worthwhile wine and one I’m glad exists.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A30
Closure: Diam

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

Navarro López Tierracalar Tempranillo 2006

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It seems to me the turf war at the lower end of the wine market is, in a lot of ways, more interesting than any perceived battle of the premiums. Burgundy is no substitute for Central Otago Pinot; I’ll take both, thanks very much. If I take a more functional view of wine, though, one wine becomes more or less interchangeable with others of a similar style and price. Hence the availability of large numbers of inexpensive red and white wines the variety and region of which is of less import than, say, price point or style. On this view, I might easily substitute a local flavoursome red for a similarly priced import, so long as it meets my broad requirements of a tasty red wine.

This Spanish Tempranillo has me questioning what it might take for local red wine drinkers to switch en masse to an imported product. Certainly, the horse has bolted when it comes to white wine, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc having captured the palate (and wallet) of many an Australian consumer. This wine (and others like it) is in some ways a parallel case study — it’s just different enough, just cheap enough and just bland enough to represent an attractive alternative to a lot of local wines. 
None of which is meant as a compliment in particular. In fact, I wasn’t going to write this up as I am finding it quite uninspiring. But then, so are many wines at the $A15-20 mark, so it’s no failure of this wine in particular. The nose is moderately aromatic, showing woody spices alongside red dried fruits and a hint of cured meats. Quite easygoing, with just enough of a twist to raise an eyebrow and differentiate itself from the mainstream of mid-priced fruit bombs. The palate is very much more of the same, and to its credit is quite perfectly balanced for immediate consumption. Tasty sour red fruits and rough vanilla oak run the length of the tongue. And, well, not much else, really. A bit of meaty complexity, perhaps, and a pleasingly textured mouthfeel that is the highlight of the wine for me. Reasonable finish. Again, it’s only one step away from the generic mainstream of value-oriented industrial red wine, but that discernible step means a lot in this context.
Whether I’d personally choose this over a local wine of similar price is a moot point; the fact is, this is a real alternative and one I cannot fault as an everyday drinking wine. At $A12 or so, it would fly off the shelves.

Navarro López
Price: $A16.15
Closure: Cork

Vina Ginesa Reservas Granrojo Rojo Garnacha 2006

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I went from a Great Western Shiraz to this in the space of a few sips and, if nothing else, the exercise served to reinforce how instructive comparative tasting can be. I thought this wine quite horrid at first; Eurotrash to the Great Western’s laconic charm. Improved through the evening, though.

I should note the comically short cork keeping the wine inside, as I don’t believe I’ve seen one so small before. A robust aroma consisting of dried flowers, bright spices and aggressively sour-edged red fruit. There are also funkier smells that remind me of cured pork sausages. In the mouth, bright and brash with coarsely textured acid and brisk, raspy tannins. There are flashes of intensely sweet, confected fruit in amongst all the butchers’ shop smells. Pepper, spice and rusticity add interest. The whole is light to medium bodied and sufficiently cleansing, though I could never describe a wine like this as easy drinking (in the “brain off” sense) because it’s just so angular. 

I kept wanting chewy bread and tangy cheese while drinking this wine, and suspect it would go down a treat at a picnic or other casual dining circumstance. 

Vina Ginesa Reservas
Price: $A18.95
Closure: Cork

Best's Great Western Bin No 1 Shiraz 2006

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Jeremy over at Wine Will Eat Itself recently blogged about terroir and (amongst other things) its relationship to quality. I’m inclined to think that a sense of place contributes interest quite apart from objective notions of quality and that, indeed, the two can be quite separate. This wine is a real live example, albeit on a regional scale. 

Utterly regional on the nose, with exotic spices overlaying darkly-fruited aromas and some vanilla oak. It’s quite straightforward and lacks the complexity that might elevate it beyond simply being correct. However, if you like Great Western Shiraz, it will be like coming home.
Very much more of the same in the mouth. Lots of flavour from the word go, with ripe plums and blackberries the key fruit characters, along with tantalising spice and balanced oak. Medium bodied, the middle palate is especially luscious, showing the greatest level of flavour density and a velvet texture. The acid and tannin seem very well balanced and provide a nice framework within which flavours can move over the tongue. For all that, there’s a blocky or blurry character  that prevents it from feeling truly sophisticated. And, despite the rich flavour profile, it’s not the last word in intensity, which leaves me wanting more.
Impressive typicité, then, without rising to an exalted level of quality.

Best’s Wines
Price: $A22.80
Closure: Stelvin

Clayfield Grampians Shiraz 2005

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Reading others’ tasting notes helps me to learn — about wine, sure, but more often about a particular point of view. No death of the Author for me; as much as I buy into the idea that wine stands alone, there’s a huge amount of interest in understanding how its aesthetics are shaped by those who practice the craft of wine writing. For one thing, wine writers inevitably hone in on one or other aspect of wine, and this resonates not only in terms of how a particular wine has been perceived, but more interestingly in terms of how wine in general ought to be regarded.

The obvious example is the “fruit salad” approach to tasting notes. We’ve all read them; notes that consist exclusively of a list of smell and taste analogues associated with a wine’s nose and palate, as if the pleasure of wine could ever be captured so reductively. I’m prompted to ask: are the various flavours present in wine its primary pleasure? I can’t deny they form a huge part of it, but (and here we begin to get to the point) I’m smelling and tasting the 2005 Clayfield Shiraz tonight and flavours couldn’t be further from my mind.
What’s striking about this wine is its architecture (if you will forgive my semantic preciousness). Volume, density, texture, presence, thickness, flow, viscosity, impact. The flavour profile itself is identifiably Grampians Shiraz, though certainly a large scale expression of this classic regional style. The nose is immediately full and expressive. Volume is the key word here — it’s like the Spinal Tap amplifier turned all the way up to eleven. The fact that its aroma profile is squarely in the cool climate mode comes as something of a shock. Blackberry brambles, plum and pepper in spades. It has such presence and immediacy. 
The palate is in no way a letdown after this promising start. There is plenty of flavour for starters, very much in line with the aroma. But what’s striking are, again, the architectural elements. The tannins are truly remarkable. At first forbidding, with some time in the glass they begin to melt like chocolate in the mouth, transforming from blocky and solid to a more velvet textural expression, all the while retaining a dry, slightly bitter (as in Angostura) finish. At the same time, a silky viscosity causes the wine to swell sensuously on the middle palate.  The label says 15% abv and perhaps this shows, yet I don’t see perceptible alcohol as a fault a priori. Here, it adds to this wine’s sense of elegant debauchery, like a party guest not quite hiding the fact that they’re snorting a line of coke. Or something. 
Fabulous wine. 

Clayfield Wines
Price: $A45
Closure: Stelvin

Clayfield Massif Thomas Wills Shiraz 2006

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Clayfield Wines is a small maker in the Grampians region helmed by a most engaging winemaker in Simon Clayfield. I recently purchased the currently available range (three Shirazes), and this is the first I’ve tried. It’s the “second” label wine, priced at a very reasonable $A24.

Absolute Grampians Shiraz. A deeply spiced, incense-like nose full of dark, ripe plum fruit. Being a cool climate style, the fruit isn’t as riotous as something from the Barossa (for example), but is clean, stylish and distinctive. There’s also a positive oak note, cheery and bubble gum-like, that suits the fruit well. The aroma seems very slightly lifted in an attractive manner.

Curlewis Bel Sel Pinot Noir 2006

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Together with the Stefano Lubiana tasted yesterday, this wine falls in a sparsely populated class that I shall call “second label Australian Pinot Noirs that don’t taste like second label Australian Pinot Noirs.” Breaking new ground, as always.

This wine reeks of winemaking cred. Really funky aromas of tomato sauce, barbecued snags, sparkling red fruit and spice. A touch of merde too. Personally, I love it, not least for the fact that it will probably divide drinkers in an instant. Despite everything that’s going on here, fruit flavour seems quite straightforward, which is a nice foil to the winemaking artifact. Above all, it communicates an immediate, confident sense of style.