Tag Archives: Merlot

Foundry Vineyards Cabernet Sauvignon 2003

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Such beautiful packaging, and such a shame to unwrap the bottle from its stylish red paper, but my cat just got back from the vet and deserved something to help him overcome the trauma, so there you go. This has been languishing in my cellar for years, picked up in Walla Walla during their spring tasting weekend; that time, I had stayed in the Bridal Suite at the Howard Johnson’s – don’t laugh, it was only $5 more, and turned out to have fewer amenities than their usual rooms, but I digress.I was shocked to smell this at first; the first impression is of, well, shit. Ewww. However, once you get past the shock, it does improve, but the bad smell seems to be on an endless, faulty merry-go-round with the other smells of Walla Walla fruit and Kalamata olive. I… am not a fan, admittedly; this smelled quite a bit different when I tasted the wine on site.Thankfully, when you get it past your nose and into your mouth, what you get is a lovely, elegant, supple Washington cabernet that is everything that good wines from that state are: brightly/subtly acidic in the background, with rich, lush, ripe red fruits in the front, all set off nicely against a lumbering backdrop of quality French oak. There is also a very distinctive, very hard for me to describe of something like green olives, salt water, and stale fruitcake hovering around the midpalate; I have a feeling that this wine may be a bit de trop for your average American red wine drinker, but honestly? Try to see beyond the oddness and you may be richly rewarded.Bonus: Jim Dine did the label, which is quite handsome. This wine really does look and feel like a $100 cult Cabernet from California; it’s insanely good value.Foundry Vineyards
Price: $30
Closure: Cork

Brookland Valley Merlot 2004

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Who first said that Merlot should taste soft, fruity and generous? It’s an oft-repeated opinion, usually trotted out apologetically in conjunction with some mass-market, sub-$15 bottle of wine. On this view, Merlot ends up a bit like that mentally challenged second cousin who turns up to all the family functions and who is at least, you know, nice.

Langhorne Creek Area Red Blend 2003

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Only this afternoon I was listening to Max Allen’s Crush podcasts, which briefly discuss various Australian wine regions in Mr Allen’s typically fanciful style. The episode on Langhorne Creek discusses at some length the relative invisibility of this South Australian region, although plantings there are extensive. Fortuitously, I came across this wine when rummaging through the “cellar” at home. Not only is it a Langhorne Creek wine, but (according to the back label, anyway) is made expressly to showcase the region’s qualities. “Created” by Cellarmasters but made at Bleasdale, the wine was assembled from several growers’ grapes;

Jacob's Creek Reserve Merlot 2004

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There are a few notable Merlots on the local scene but I’d struggle to articulate (based on admittedly limited experience) what a regional Aussie Merlot should taste like. Is that a bad thing? I’m not sure; it certainly makes for unexpected, though often bland, tasting experiences.

This one is sourced from various regions in South Australia and forms part of the Reserve range of Jacob’s Creek wines. There’s often some pretty good value in this range and the wines are just that bit more “serious” than the standard label. In terms of aroma, there’s a lot of oak; the sort of hard, toasty, cedary oak that tends to mask easy fruit flavour. It’s very glamorous but kind of confronting too. Varietally, I’m getting some blueberry fruit but a wider, more dominant range of brambly notes. So, quite an austere aroma profile, really.
In the mouth, quite a hard, oak-driven wine. Maybe I’m being cynical but this wine feels built to a formula that is less about fruit character (and sympathetic treatment) and all about positioning. Quite a firm, powerful attack that showers the tongue with lean (not unripe) flavour and some underlying sweet berry fruit. The middle palate reveals this wine’s essential tension: a thread of firm oak runs alongside plush, quite attractive berry fruit and a hint of green olive. The oak character is akin to nutmeg that you haven’t yet grated. The flavours are large scale and very generous, but the whole feels disjointed, somehow, and unharmonious. Ripe tannins create a lovely texture that carries the wine through a somewhat hollow finish. A bit hot, perhaps, the wine finishing as it starts, with an essentially sappy, angular note that seems mostly oak-derived.
I’m not getting what I need from this wine. It’s extremely well made, clean and flavourful. But, for me, it is pretentious; its style is essentially mismatched to the underlying character of its fruit. I drank this wine with an outrageously inappropriate meal (Japanese curry) that, ironcally, tamed some of the savoury characters and allowed a softer, more feminine side to emerge. 

Jacob’s Creek
Price: $A16
Closure: Cork

Clonakilla Cabernet Merlot 2001

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It probably won’t come as a relevation that Chris and I are fans of Clonakilla’s wines. I remember once visiting the cellar door and having a chat with Tim Kirk about this Cabernet blend, and was surprised to hear him express reservations. I suppose the Canberra District calls to mind Shiraz and, to a lesser extent, Riesling, with Cabernet-based wines tending to fall into the same “why would you” territory as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Still, I’m always on the lookout for glorious exceptions, and I’ve usually enjoyed this label a great deal.

High quality cork. Beautiful, heady aroma of violets, blackcurrant fruit, cedar and some underlying decay. It’s quite a thick, enveloping aroma profile, though it retains some of the angular elegance I associate with Cabernet Sauvignon. I love smelling this wine, and for my taste it is showing enough bottle age to add significant complexity without challenging those who have a distaste for old red wine.

Really good continuity from nose to palate. There are a few striking aspects to this wine as it currently stands. Firstly, the flavour profile echoes the aroma’s complexity and balance of aged versus primary notes. It reminds me a little of aged Hunter red wines, with some light earthiness alongside more classically Cabernet flavours. Secondly, mouthfeel is soft and gently textural, and for a moment hides the degree to which flavours adhere to the tongue. There’s a really interesting interplay between luxurious flavours and structure, which moves from slippery to textured to almost crunchy on the after palate. Here it becomes evident there’s still considerable acidity keeping the wine fresh, and I imagine guaranteeing it a few more productive years in bottle.

Cabernet may not contribute to the Canberra District’s renown, but here’s a wine that, eight years after vintage, is still continuing to improve. Not bad. A beautiful wine.

Clonakilla
Price: $35
Closure: Cork

MadFish Premium Red 2006

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Tasting obscure, limited run, single vineyard wines from boutique producers is just so… obvious. Let’s face it, for those on a limited budget, much of our satisfaction must derive from more accessible wines. Quite apart from affordability, I have to admit I’m more than a little fascinated by the challenge that surely faces producers of cheap, larger volume labels. In this space, MadFish has developed an admirably positive name for itself. What, then, to make of this current release Premium Red?

Not as much as I would have liked, I’m afraid. A full nose of dusty Cabernet fruit mixed with softer, round berries. Quite fragrant, part of its personality is a good dose of green leaf, verging on astringent twig. I’m not bothered by some green notes in Cabernet, but this one verges on excessive, at least for my taste. Still, good volume. The palate confirms a borderline unripe flavour profile, although there’s also a decent amount of sweet dark berry fruit alongside. It’s actually a very well-formed wine, structurally, with a nice swell to the middle palate and a gently tapered after palate and finish. Waves of sweet fruit push through entry and mid-palate in particular. But astringent, marginal tannins intrude towards the end and roughen up what is, otherwise, a good BBQ red.

MadFish Wines
Price: $20
Closure: Stelvin

Esk Valley Merlot Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec 2007

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I confess I loved many of the Hawkes Bay reds tasted on my last visit to New Zealand, so I’ve been keen to try a few more this visit. Whilst Gimblett Gravels Syrah is a spectacular style and very appealing me, tonight I’m trying a Bordeaux blend, which is historically more typical to this region.

Lovely bright purple colour, not overly dense, almost garish in its purity. On the nose, sweet red fruit and a distinctively Gimblett Gravels spice that reminds me of pot pourri. There’s a nice savoury edge to the fruit too. The more I sniff the deeper the aroma profile becomes, adding layers of complexity as I swirl. Very nice. The palate is currently highly structured with ripe yet very assertive tannins emerging quite early in the line. On entry, more bright fruit that edges towards confectionary but is held in check by spice and savouriness. Then the tannins come, powdery and even, masking the flavour profile a bit. That’s ok though, all it takes it some energetic swirling and chewing for a rush of fruit to register on the tongue, along with a well-judged amount of vanilla oak. It’s medium bodied, consistent in line and coherent. Reasonable finish.

A lovely return to Hawkes Bay.

Esk Valley
Price: $NZ30
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: December 2008

Plantagenet Eros 2007

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A rosé style made from predominantly Merlot grapes. First, a word of warning: I served this wine quite cold, in accompaniment to an Indian curry. Whoops. Not an experience I’m keen to repeat, and not entirely the fault of the wine.

Quite a deep colour; one might mistake it for a light red rather than a rosé. On the nose, somewhat reticent aromas of strawberry and herb. It’s nicely savoury but lacks the sort of outré character that I (guiltily) enjoy in a rosé. The palate is livelier, with more light strawberry fruit and herbal overtones. There’s some astringency here, initially driven by acid but carried forward on fine tannin. This aspect of the wine is less than satisfying because, although its structure is quite prominent, the wine lacks a sense of freshness, perhaps due in part to a certain lack of intensity of fruit flavour. Although generally in fear of gratuitous residual sugar, I wonder if this wine might benefit from a less austere approach in the winery. Certainly, it lacks stuffing and, in a style that is often all about effortless enjoyment, I’m having to work fairly hard to get flavour from it. A nice lift kicks in towards the after palate and brings some aniseed-like flavour to the finish.

I’m not sure where this wine sits in the scheme of things. On the one hand, its savouriness demands more concentration than fruit-driven, breezy rosé styles. On the other, it lacks the attributes of a truly fine wine: intensity, balanced structure, complex flavour.

Plantagenet
Price: $A14.25
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: October 2009

Lake's Folly Cabernets 2006

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In amongst Max Lake’s considerable oeuvre is a slim volume of memoirs, richly recounted and highly enjoyable. It colours my view of the Lake’s Folly wines. It’s tempting to view wine solely in terms of what’s in the bottle but, perhaps inevitably, knowing something about its maker, the vineyard from which it came, regional history, and so on, makes for a more complete experience. The difference between wine evaluation and wine appreciation, perhaps. In any case, Max Lake’s memoirs are a nice view into what he originally set out to do with this label, and where it sits in the grand scheme of Australian wine.

A striking, pungent nose showing tobacco leaf, raw spice, fragrant cabernet fruit, sweet earth and a whole lot else besides. It’s really quite complex and distinctive — no doubt too distinctive for some tastes. Certainly not one for Cabernet purists. Very flavoursome entry that starts cool and savoury, but quickly reveals a wider range of flavours. There is a core of moderately sweet dark fruit around which revolve a number of high toned notes: some vegetal, some earthy, some oak-derived. As with the nose, complexity of flavour is a standout. The wine is medium bodied and full of interesting textures, from detailed acidity to ripe tannins that seem to land on the tongue in silty globs. The latter become a gorgeous influence on the after palate, and help flavour to persist with good intensity through a decent finish. It’s young but very well balanced and extremely drinkable now.

This is quite a funky number and, looking back over my impressions of the 2005 Cabernet, perhaps more immediately accessible than its predecessor. I probably prefer the 2005 but this is a lovely wine, full of personality.

Lake’s Folly
Price: $A50
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: September 2008