Tag Archives: Merlot

Mike Press Merlot 2009

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After suffering a severe man flu for most of the week, I figured I may as well drown my sorrows on this Friday evening. So I find myself with a glass of Mike Press’s most recent Merlot in front of me. It’s a bit tricky trying to balance tasting, coughing and blowing my nose, but the quality of this wine is proving motivational.

I enjoyed the 2005 of this wine but this seems to me a step up. For a start, the oak seems of a higher quality, and of a character better matched to the fruit’s range of flavours. This is all quite serious, actually. The nose is heady, with dark berries, rich autumn leaves, sap and cedar, with just a hint of the nougat oak that was much more prominent in the earlier vintage wine. There’s something quite sharp about the aroma profile, not altogether attractive in fact, that should calm with some time in bottle, or a good airing in the decanter.

The thing that strikes me most about the palate is its structure. This is quite heavily architected as a wine, with decent acidity but, more notably, a prominent tannin presence. Certainly not one for the “smooth, fruity” Merlot crowd. The effect is both raw and voluptuous, a textural mouthful of a wine with a dry bite through the finish. Fruit is dense and inky, tilting towards savouriness, with a black olive and leaf edge that signals both the variety and a seriousness of intent. I’m sure the oak is contributing to an overall sense of youth and rough vibrancy, all of which should come together with some more time.

This really is an excellent, though very young, wine. At this price, a complete no brainer.

Mike Press Wines
Price: $A12.50
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Gift

Gardners Ground Merlot 2008

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Onwards with my train wreck obsession with Australian Merlot. This one’s from the Cowra region (well, Canowindra actually) and is a pretty good rendition of a quaffing red. A bonus is that it’s organic.

The nose is robust and relatively complex, with juicy, jube-like blackberries, crushed ants, subtle oak and a bit of snapped twig for good measure. The straightforward fruit flavours are pleasing enough, but what I like most is the savoury notes are quite assertive, bringing interest and an edge to an otherwise plump aroma profile.

The palate shows similar characters and a pleasingly rough mouthfeel. Entry is quiet, the most significant influence being quite bright acid. Fruit weight builds towards the middle palate, and there’s a fun medicinal edge to the flavour profile. I like the rustic savouriness of the flavours; there’s a sappy, wood-like note that comes across as dirty, in a positive sense. The main issue I have with the palate is what appears to be an excess of residual sugar, which adds body but also prevents the wine from reaching an extreme of style that I’d be interested in experiencing. Still, it’s well judged for pleasurable, mid-week drinking. And I’m not going to argue too much with that.

Gardners Ground
Price: $A19.95
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Dowie Doole Merlot 2009

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I understand 2009 was a difficult vintage in some parts of the McLaren Vale. Certainly, compared to the 2008 Merlot, this wine shows less freshness of fruit character. It retains, however, the same sense of drinkability and charm, and for that I like it a great deal.

The nose shows plums, some spice and what smells like scorched foliage (the power of suggestion, perhaps?). There’s a prickliness to the aroma profile that may be partly due to the youth of this wine; whatever its origin, it is quite edgy, yet at the same time connects well with subtle, nougat-like oak notes. Overall, generously expressive, if a bit lumpy.
Entry is bright and fresh, with well-judged acidity carrying light plum fruit flavours through to the middle palate. Weight is light to medium bodied, intensity in a similar range, yet the components seem balanced overall. There’s an attractive icing-sugar sweetness to the middle palate, adding some nuance to the fruit flavours and contributing a welcome sense of plushness. The after palate begins to show some dried fruit notes that aren’t altogether welcome, which reside under a twig-like note and gentle oak flavours. 
A product of its vintage, no doubt, but eminently drinkable nonetheless. I like the acidity in particular.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Grosset Gaia 2001

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Exotic and yet strangely familiar, this wine smells of California mission figs, damp soil in a shady redwood forest, freshly-baked German plum torte, the singing acidity of just-cleaved fruit, freshly baked brownies cooling in a suburban kitchen window, and cassis. It’s so wonderfully complex that honestly? I could probably sit here smelling it for half an hour; it’s as elaborate and fluid as a Guerlain perfume.Texturally, it’s fascinating, simultaneously hard and porous, with an initial impression of hard, ripe tannin quickly changing to a soft, slippery, sensual decay of just-melted chocolate. Beyond the texture, though, is still-present, still-youthful black cherry fruit, cheerfully slipping into warmer cigar box and cedar notes, finishing softly into a long, slow dissolve into dried herbs and dark bread baked in a wood-fired oven.Ironically, it’s the sweetness here that marks this wine as distinctly what it is. If that weren’t here, it would remind me of a Loire red, given its firm tannin and wonderfully complex notes of cherry, mineral, and herbs. However, it’s that beautiful, pure Australian fruit that elevates it beyond the merely really f***ing good and into the phenomenal. There aren’t many wines that can convincingly walk the line between Old World and New; just as Ridge Monte Bello does, this wine is simultaneously everything good about the Old and the New.I would imagine there’s another five or ten years’ life left here; simultaneously, I can’t imagine this being any better than it is right now.Grosset
Price: $27
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Château de Bellevue Lussac St-Emilion 2005

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Ah, coincidence. It’s been an interesting month: my partner was up in the Bay Area a couple of weeks back and availed himself of one of their May specials: a half-case of Bordeaux wine at a reduced price. This week, the New York Times published an excellent article quoting Paul Grieco of Hearth – a restaurant in New York City where I’ll hopefully be drinking myself into a stupor this coming Sunday – as being “sad” that no one’s come into the restaurant and asked for a glass of Bordeaux. I get that: I own barely any Bordeaux – heck – with this recent purchase I have nearly eight bottles, I think – and generally never think to buy any. Why? Well, the price thing, yeah, but also because I’ve never had one that, you know, really transported me. The ones I’ve had have inspired no personal connection, no rhapsodic waxing, nothing. Worse yet, I’ve been watching all ten hours of Mondovino (the TV series, not the movie) this week and have cringed repeatedly at the huge châteaux and their tacky yet expensive eyeglass-wearing marketing directors, etc. etc. etc.So. Here’s a bottle of not-quite-so-young Bordeaux. Kermit Lynch imported it; it’s thirty bucks or so, apparently. What’s it like?First off, the nose isn’t at all what I was expecting. It’s lush: full, rich, darkly scented, redolent of cassis and smoked tea. There’s just a bit of black cured olives, wet clay, and rich, savory meat that reminds me of Korean barbecued ribs. It’s wonderfully complex, to be short.My first thought upon tasting it, however, was “this isn’t fully ripe.” There are definite green, herbaceous notes here that seem surprising and slightly unpleasant, especially for someone used to California, Washington, South Africa: instead of delivering a wine as rich as the smell, you instead are presented with a distinctly mean, narrow flavor profile that’s disappointing at first. The trick, however, is to stick with it: suddenly, you find yourself flashing back to taste descriptors learned in college that you never use for your home state: lead pencil, cigar box, minerality, all of those things. Most of all, though, I taste a kind of slate-y stoniness; the wine is narrow in the mouth but upon closer reflection decidedly taut, beautiful in the same way that mannish women are: you sense a tension of beauty rooted in restraint. Yes, this could have wound up in Napa territory, all plushness, sweet tannins, cloying chocolate-plum perfume: instead, it’s been artfully arrested in a way that those qualities inherent to Merlot are arrested, paradoxically making them more compelling.Tannins are noticeably present, of course, yet perfectly correct; they’re currently working beautifully with a meat pie from the South African bakery down the road. Based on the rich fruit and good acidity, I’d reckon that I opened this bottle too soon: if I were you, I’d hold this back for another decade.To sum up: yes, my generation do not drink Bordeaux… yet. The trick is I think to work through the initial disappointment of encountering a wine almost, but not quite, familiar as the stuff of Pahlmeyer and Thelema; you need to sit with this one for some time and listen carefully. The story it tells is all the more beautiful for speaking so softly. Château de Bellevue
Price: $28
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Blue Poles Allouran 2007

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Ever since I comprehensively fucked up my student wine earlier this year, I’ve had a fondness for Cabernet Franc. While crushing the grapes by hand, I smelled the most distinctively peppery aroma, fresh and sharp, that I recognised from wines consumed in the past but had never smelled with quite that combination of purity and deliciousness.

Pleasingly, this wine, though a Merlot-dominant blend, captures some of that distinctive Franc aroma. To my nose, the Franc component is quite evident. That mélange of of pepper and sweetly roasted red capsicum, both sharp and pretty, sits atop deeper Merlot aromas and some powdery vanilla oak. This wine smells highly integrated, so it’s a little misleading to describe it in terms of separate notes; aromas melt into one another with pleasure. Overall, there’s a fresh liveliness to this wine’s aroma that is really attractive.

The palate shows genuine elegance. A rush of dark plum fruit flavour on entry, with some high toned pepper providing some light to the fruit’s shade. The mid palate shows some nervy acidity that provides tight focus to the line. Indeed, this wine has a way to go yet before it allows itself deep relaxation. The flavours, though tending towards a slight simplicity in the plum spectrum, are very well matched and balanced. Oak character is sympathetic to the fruit and interlocks with its flavours like a lover’s hands. The after palate shows the most sucrosité of any point along the line. The finish is decent, not thinning out until the last moments of its presence on the tongue.

Nice wine, exceptional value.

Blue Poles Vineyard
Price: $A25
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Blue Poles Reserve Merlot 2008

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On Friday, I was fortunate enough to spend time with Mark Gifford of Blue Poles Vineyard. Amongst the wines we tasted were his current 2007 Reserve Merlot, and this 2008 wine, due for release in the near future. I wrote glowingly and, I think, correctly about the 2007, so it was fascinating to taste the two side by side. On Friday, I preferred the 2008 for its tautness and intellect, finding the 2007 soft-edged by comparison. The following evening, when I retasted both, the 2007 had zapped into focus, giving the 2008 a real run for its money. I still can’t decide which I like more. What’s clear is they are both exceptional wines, and in the uppermost echelons of Australian Merlot.

The aroma is heady, deeply fruited, dark and savoury-edged, with perfume-like basenotes of woody spice and spicy oak, tonka bean and juicy leaves. It’s both accessible and complex, at times almost overwhelmingly forthright but always remaining fundamentally elusive and unable to be easily dissected. There’s an element of the strip tease to this wine that is quite compelling.

Entry is dark, just hinting at a sort of plush decadence before showing controlled movement to the middle palate. Here, the full spectrum of this wine’s flavours and structural components becomes evident. Tobacco leaves; savoury berry fruits with just a hint of Merlot’s teddy bear side; abundant, sweet, textural tannins, like rough sandpaper; acidity that holds everything in its place and takes a moment to express its own flourish before whisking the whole bundle of flavours through a raspy, delicious after palate. What a mouthful. The finish is held somewhat in check right now due to all that structure, but is likely to gain greater extension and fullness once the wine has had time to relax.
One could be forgiven for thinking this is even better than the 2007.  

Blue Poles Vineyard
Price: $A35
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample

Château Carignan Premières Côtes de Bordeaux Prima 2005

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Initially, my impression is of a dark, sweet, rich wine with some maturity to it. There’s a bit more dirt and a little bit of barnyard with some aeration, but overall the impression is of a good quality French wine, pretty much the sort of thing you’d be served at the France Pavilion at EPCOT: pretty bottle, hints of what is more typically French, and yet not altogether different than a California wine at first.I had to be patient with this wine: it took quite some time before it opened up enough to be enjoyable. At first, it seemed to be an awkward mix of outsize acidity with nothing more than sweet red fruit and barnyard; however, after half an hour, it displayed some lovely notes of cocoa and sweet, toasty oak. Even so, the wine seems to be overly ambitious to me: yes, there’s fruit weight, ripeness, oak, money here… and yet it just doesn’t hang together. Instead of charm, minerality, and any semblance of terroir, all I get here is, well, California style merlot with a bit more barnyard than usual. The tannins are still kinda huge at this state, the acidity doesn’t seem to mesh well with the wine, and overall it’s tough going and not especially pleasurable, especially not at this (discounted) price.There are, as they say, better options. I’ve seen Northstar merlot from Washington state discounted to the $20 level recently, and that wine is in my opinion a much more successful attempt at Pahlmeyer (or what have you) than this wine is.Château Carignan
Price: $20
Closure: Cork
Source: Retail

Dindima Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot 2005

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Interesting wine on paper, this. It’s a new release wine yet, at five years of age, relatively old to be so. Not that this is a bad thing; one could argue a lot of red wines are released way too young. Still, it does raise interesting questions even before tasting around style and intent. To the wine, then.

Decidedly herbaceous. Not breathtakingly so, and whether you will find its piercing cut grass and mulch notes objectionable will likely depend on your tolerance for Bordeaux blends on the leaner, greener side of things. There are also aromas of (slightly too much) vanilla and and dark, concentrated fruits, sort of cherry-like but deeper than this descriptor suggests. 
The palate shows considerable tannin and I suspect this is one reason why the wine has been held back for release. Entry is lean and slippery, and the middle palate does not build much in terms of volume. There’s an intense, focused streak of fruit right down the middle of the line; this feels pretty austere. Chalky tannins build through the middle and after palates, I question whether they are fully ripe; like the nose, it’s all a bit edgy without being completely over the top. Quite a long finish, all told.
A marginal wine that I suspect will divide drinkers. I like its brightness and focus, but acknowledge it will be a bit too lean for some.

Dindima
Price: $A35
Closure: Diam
Source: Sample

Second Nature Cabernet Shiraz Merlot 2008

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It’s probably counter productive to go to the gym then pick up McDonalds on the way home. And yet, here I am, pleased to report my Mighty Angus went down superbly, well accompanied by this reasonably priced McLaren Vale blend. I’m a firm believer even the humblest meal can be a bit special, and that the right wine is often the key. But then, I’ve been known to match wine with Chicko rolls, so trust me at your peril.

What one really needs in this situation is a wine that stands up to the, at times, coarse flavours of fast food – those salty, greasy, perhaps sweet components that make the experience so enjoyable. This wine responds to those challenges with a firm, robust flavour profile and sufficient structure to combat the excesses of a burger, without sacrificing the soft luxury of an easy drinking red wine. On the nose, rather non-specific but expressive red and black berry fruits, a hint of brambly vegetation and some supportive bubble gum oak. It’s far from complex; what makes it work is its sense of harmony and composure. It’s “just right.” 
The palate is refreshingly acidic while retaining good body and presence in the mouth. Entry is textural and quite lively, leading to a middle palate that shows a fruit-driven flavour profile. Mixed berries mostly, with a lick of latte and some crushed leaves, all moderate in intensity. Again, quite straightforward, easy, and drinkable. There’s no shred of the confectionary flavours that can plague lower priced red wines. Oak lifts the after palate to a dry finish that shows some dried fruit characters alongside the structural elements. 
Not a wine of sophistication or complexity, but really fun and drinkable nonetheless. Sort of like my Mighty Angus. A good match.

Dowie Doole
Price: $A18
Closure: Stelvin
Source: Sample