It’s easy to heap praise on premium wines, for there’s often an outstanding quality to their fruit or winemaking that attracts easy attention. And we expect a lot from expensive wines, so it’s no surprise when they display excellence of style. I often think the task of the quaffing wine is so much more difficult. These are wines that are made to a certain price point, perhaps limiting the winemaker’s options with regard to fruit and oak. It’s the difference between the architect designing a luxury villa versus affordable mass housing. Yet, does the latter demand less intent or attention? I don’t think so. The challenge is simply different, and should be appreciated differently.

I’m thinking these thoughts as I taste this sub-$20 wine from Barossa producer Yelland & Papps, whose house style is firmly oriented towards easy drinkability at all price points in its range. What I’m looking for here is regional character and a total absence of the sort of insultingly simple fruit character that, all too often, gets trotted out at these price points. Happily, this wine delivers.

It’s not a wine of refinement or delicacy, nor does it need to be. The nose, in fact, is quite blunt, with highly regional ripe plum fruit character bursting from the glass, tangles of spice swirling around its core. That’s it, more or less, with little in the way of nuance or layers, but its total honesty carries it through and gives it attractive appeal.

The palate is of moderate weight and intensity, carrying a consistent line from the aroma through to entry and middle palate. There’s a simple rusticity to the flavour profile; red fruit and brown spice sharing equal billing; that makes this an easy, generous experience, despite its modest dimensions. Is the oak a little obvious (even synthetic) in character? Perhaps, but that only slightly detracts from the straightforwardness of the experience.

This seems really well-judged, as much for its lack of pretension as anything else. Drink, enjoy.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A19.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

This has been open a good couple of days and is just starting to sing. There was something fuzzy about it on opening, the clarity of its fruit obscured by structural static. Much better now, though.

On the nose, a spiced, clove-laced aroma of crushed blood plums and cedar, pine needles and marzipan. Opulent is going too far; mellifluous a better description for what is an easy, conversational aroma profile. I like the oak character in particular; it’s a mixture of nougat and nuts with hints of dark spice. Despite being more accessible after a couple of days, this remains a rustic nose, roughed up with dark notes and graced with a character of fruit that’s more tart-baked than freshly picked.

The palate is generous and solidly structured, with a level of density that remains high right down the line. That said, it’s not the most highly defined wine, flavours blurring into one another with pleasant casualness. So the overall impression is one of large scale ease, which is tremendously appealing if you set aside the sort of hard-edged detail that some wines pursue in the name of quality. No, this is old school Barossa, full of plum and fruit cake spice, well-balanced acid and soft tannins. The fruit may lack an ounce of freshness, but it’s barely a mark on the drinkability here.

A very good wine in its style.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A32
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

At $65, this wine sits firmly in “icon” territory on price alone. What’s interesting to me is that its producer, Yelland & Papps, typically produces joyously, perhaps even excessively, easy-drinking expressions of the classic Barossa Valley varieties (Grenache, Shiraz). How will this approach translate to a price point at which drinkers will undoubtedly expect so much more?

Once I recovered from pouring a glass from what is surely the heaviest bottle I’ve ever encountered, the nose screamed immediately “more.” More fruit, greater density, a surplus of oak; this wine is quite packed with elements, and they struggle at first to make their way coherently from the glass. It’s like the Boxing Day sales of yore, shoppers trampling over each other to get to the single, ridiculously discounted fridge freezer on Level 3. There’s plum essence, fruit cake spice and rather glossy cedar oak in the main. Perhaps slightly lifted, which helps the red fruit notes sing. I don’t think there’s an excess of complexity; rather, the focus is on impact and sheer quantity.

If anything, the palate is even more forceful. There’s a thickness of mouthfeel and generosity of flavour that’s immediately evident on entry, and it fairly forces the mouth open in order to accommodate all that it has to offer (including a fairly visible alcohol level of 15% abv). Super concentrated plum juice, all manner of red and black berries, more spice, more oak. There’s so much here I’m not sure where to look, but I can remark with some certainty that few will be left wanting more flavour than is here.

All of which causes me to return to my starting point, which is to question the stylistic implications of a reserve-level wine. Yelland & Papps has taken a relatively conventional approach of “more is more,” and within the style this is a really good wine, full of quality fruit and showing well-handled oak in particular. And, although it’s not what I’d class as an easy drinking wine, this somehow feels right within the context of the producer’s house style. Yet I can’t help wondering what the alternate options might be. A finer wine, perhaps, more detailed and characterful? Something challenging, with more adventurous winemaking or angular flavours? A style that mines less well travelled implications of Barossa terroir?

It’s no doubt wrong to criticise something for what it isn’t, and I hope my note makes clear that this wine has several outstanding features. Perhaps my own craving for novelty is the issue in this instance; drinkers are advised to crack open a bottle of this and enjoy what the Barossa does best.

Yelland & Papps
Price: $A65
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample