Tag Archives: Shiraz/Syrah

Mount Ida Shiraz 2001

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An older Shiraz from one of Australia’s more renowned regions for this variety, Heathcote in Victoria. This wine is, interestingly, sealed under Stelvin, which is somewhat unusual for red wines of this age. Although Mount Ida is a famous vineyard in Heathcote, I’m not especially familiar with its output, so this tasting was quite exploratory for me.

A savoury nose, some volatility, with earthy minerals, some astringent eucalyptus, roasted meats, slightly edgy oak. Far from a fruit bomb, this one. I find the nose complex and a little challenging in its angularity. 
The entry has good impact and delivers flavour early in the wine’s line. There are lots of distinct flavours here and, unusually for me, I found myself identifying a fair few. At last count, we have: pepper, sappy vanilla oak, some sweet leathery bottle age, dusty dark fruit, some cedar and slight ecualyptus character, plus a dash of sweet granite-like minerality. Phew. It’s medium bodied and presents its flavours assertively. It’s also curiously flat and almost cartoonish in its “surface level view” of flavour. The wine lacks a sense of depth and stuffing that, even in a lighter red, assures continued interest beyond any initial impact. So, despite a lot of qualities usually regarded as positive (complexity, intensity, distinctiveness) I wasn’t especially drawn to the wine’s flavour profile or structure. Fine tannins help the wine’s dry finish to linger well.
This wine (or perhaps this bottle) isn’t really my style, although some elements of the flavour profile (the minerality in particular) are pleasing. The other half loved it.
 
Mount Ida (Fosters)
Price: $A30
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: July 2008
 

Rosemount Balmoral Syrah 2002

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A controversial wine. This benchmark Australian label in its 2002 incarnation was savaged by some prominent critics on release, then appeared at an enormous discount at retail. I picked up a couple out of curiosity and whacked them in the cellar. Here’s a first taste.

There’s a curious duality on the nose. First, hints of sweet dark fruit and sweeter oak. Second, an astringent, funky character that is hard to pin down but that exists somewhere between green bean and hot tar. For all that, it’s quite aromatic.
The palate is revealing, as it more strongly contrasts sweet fruit against powerfully astringent, somewhat bitter flavours. Just full of contradictions, this wine. There’s definitely some ripe, black fruit in there. It’s emphemeral, though, and hence teases the palate without providing a sense of closure or completeness. Instead, the wine is somewhat dominated by apparently unripe notes and bitter coffee grounds. It’s all slightly dirty and quite out of keeping with my understanding of style and balance. Some sweet vanilla oak sneaks into the after palate, and the finish is quite long.
I left a little in glass overnight and it calmed somewhat, but with this diminution of difficult flavours came an overall dullness that is no compensation. I should note, though, that we finished the bottle between us, and it’s ironic that a wine about which I have so many questions can still be oddly drinkable. The other half certainly liked it more than I, so maybe it’s just not my style. 
 
Price: $A20
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: July 2008

Mount Pleasant Old Paddock & Old Hill Shiraz 1996

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There’s something about wines that are potentially great: when you get them in the glass, no matter of time spent sniffing and thinking seems to offer so much as a suggestion as to what exactly this wine is supposed to be. Most wines offer easy clues: raspberry motor oil? Congratulations, you’ve just bought a high octane Barossa shiraz? Your grandmother’s toilet soap mixed in with Hawaiian Punch? Congratulation, you just bought a trendy Shiraz Viognier that someone hurried to market in the early 2000s.And this wine? I’m stumped. Is that earth? Dried dates, perhaps? No. Something like nail varnish and vetiver? No, that’s not it either. It’s definitely old – as I poured it into the glass, its color was hesitant, shy, unwilling to assert itself. Cloves and camphor? That might be more correct… at any rate, there is still some kind of primary fruit hanging on for dear life here, combined with somewhat “off” (yet likeable!) notes of dirt and sharpness.Surprisingly rich in the mouth,  it still defies easy description; this isn’t really like any wine I know. There’s something here which reminds me of a discontinued chocolate sampler left over from last season’s Valentine’s Day shopping: the tiniest bit musty with a fruitiness of confectionarial trends long since past. There’s almost a horehound medicinal aspect here too, but not really; menthol, perhaps, but more of a folk remedy than cheap chewing gum additives. There’s absolutely lovely viscosity here as well; the feel is surprising and welcoming; there’s also a curiously high-pitched tangential note that enter early on and remains for some time. Finally, there still seems to be some sweet, woody character here that still supports it all.So: I’m not sure what the heck to say about this wine other than it is strange, strange in the best possible way. Everything they teach you in wine school turns out to be wrong in this one case: you can’t grow grapes in such a terrible climate, you shouldn’t age New World wines that long, you name it. But what we have here, ultimately, is (I think) terroir, plain and simple. Somehow, the local pioneers sussed that the Hunter Valley does in fact produce phenomenally good wines – wines that are in fact better than good as they’re entirely sui generis. And that’s no small achievement.Mount PleasantPrice: No idea (this was a present from Julian); Wine Searcher says about A$42 for the current releaseClosure: CorkDate tasted: July 2008

Penfolds St Henri 2002

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Out of the bottle, this wine shows as a dark, heavy Australian shiraz with distinct aromas of hazelnuts and burnt sugar. However, it doesn’t come across as overly complex; it’s a bit dumb, strangely enough; with some more time and air, it didn’t seem to progress much beyond an agreeable but slightly generic “warm climate Syrah” note.Drinking the wine is an exercise in the texture of luxury; this is as plush as Beverly Hills plastic surgery, round and full at the edges, but (surprisingly) not overdone: this is not a humongous Barossa Valley fruit bomb in the mold of a Parker 95, but something far more difficult and rare: a balanced, well proportioned wine that is absolutely lovely on its own terms – and thankfully without a face-numbing hit of alcohol to back it up.The finish turns out to be the most amazing thing here: if it weren’t for the finish, you wouldn’t think this wine’s as expensive as it is. It lasts. Minutes later, you still have the impression of savoriness; it’s umami beyond belief and reminds me of ketjap manis and dark chocolate ganache. Long after you’ve swallowed, it’s still there… and there seems to be just a hint of minty eucalyptus that sneaks up after a minute or two. Delicious.PenfoldsPrice: US $40Closure: CorkDate tasted: June 2008

Penfolds Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz 2002

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Right off the bat you’re in decidedly Australian territory with this wine: it smells rich, tending towards blackstrap molasses and other guilty pleasures. Decidedly spicy, presumably thanks to new oak influence, there’s also a hint of mintiness here as well as well as violet pastilles and crusty brown bread.Almost overwhelmingly fat in the mouth, there’s somewhat unintegrated acidity lurking in there as well, which clear the wine off of my palate abruptly; this is salved, however, the finish, which is long, gentle, and almost like Mexican chocolate: it’s spicy, smooth, and almost floral.There’s a distinctively jammy Australian berry fruit component here as well, but it seems to be overwhelmed somewhat by the oak. Tannins are fairly soft at this point, and the wine doesn’t appear to be showing any aged characteristics; this is a solid wine that more or less defines what consumers have come to expect from an Australian wine at this price point, I suppose.  It’s all perfectly good but ultimately lacking on some level; even though it’s labeled Coonawarra, it really tastes more like it could be from anywhere, especially compared to Leconfield or Yalumba wines from the same region.The acidity worries me, though – it seems really out of place here. I’m probably wrong, but I suspect some kind of acid adjustment gone ever so slightly wrong.PenfoldsPrice: US $17.99Closure: CorkDate tasted: June 2008

Collector Reserve Shiraz 2006

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It’s interesting to compare wines from a producer that offers just two in its portfolio. Collector, a new Canberra-based producer, sells a lower price Marked Tree Shiraz, and this, its Reserve label. Both are made from Canberra region Shiraz grapes, which makes the comparison doubly interesting.

A heady nose of roast meats, vanilla, spice and rich red and black fruit, and of all things a bit of Yorkshire pudding. Showing a clear resemblance to the Marked Tree wine, this is a whole lot more of everything except perhaps a certain lightness of touch. But this is a Reserve level wine, presumably designed for extra oomph, and it attains this goal admirably.

Deep fruit flavours gush over the tongue on entry, and it’s the sort of cool, firm attack that marks wines of sufficient padding. Despite the rush of flavour, though, this isn’t a large scale or clumsy style. By contrast, there’s real balance here, with each element asserting itself just enough to be perceived before retreating into the complex harmonic flow. This wine has the sort of flavour profile that would be considered lolly-like if it were sweeter; that it shows only a touch of sucrosité means the fruit is beguiling and even a little elusive in character, despite its generosity. A lovely blanket of fine, slightly sandy tannins descends on the tongue as the after palate kicks in; they’re ripe and not especially drying, and so contribute primarily to the wine’s textural dimension. Despite the tannins, I wouldn’t describe the wine as overly structured — acid is not a feature. The finish morphs into a sort of raspberry liqueur-like note crossed with licorice that is utterly delicious.

Interestingly, food (well, the lamb chops I’m having tonight) dulls the wine and hollows out the after palate somewhat. I attribute this to the relatively subtle acidity. So, pair this wine wisely with food, or go the total alco route and drink it unaccompanied.

Collector Wines
Price: $A46
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: June 2008

Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz 2003

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Around six and a half years ago, I was preparing to leave for Australia. Me, I’m Californian, but I’d always wanted to visit; after many years of planning and saving, my partner and I decided to leave for Sydney in February 2001.A few weeks before we did, I met Julian for the first time: we had mutual friends in Sydney, and it was clear that we were both, well, obsessed with wine to a certain extent. I brought a couple of bottles of wine to Australia with me – Bonny Doon pinot gris, I believe – but schedules didn’t work out and we didn’t get a chance to meet in person, unfortunately.Six weeks later, I found myself in Melbourne. I’d already begun having a look around Australia’s wine regions – most memorable were Moorilla Estate (for verging on the ludicrous – think tacky art museum with an utterly trashed tasting room with no actual wine available to taste) as well as Golders Vineyard (probably the first pinot noir I’d ever had that verged on the transcendent). In the meantime, I’d arranged to get together with Julian the next week in Sydney, but of course I wanted to find some wine from my home state. You know, the usual home town pride, nothing special.According to Bonny Doon’s importer, there was one small shop in Melbourne that carried Le Cigare Volant, which was just about the only Californian wine I was able to find in town. Strangely enough, a wine sales rep noticed I was buying it and started to gossip about how Bonny Doon winemaker Randall Grahm had just been in town for some kind of international Shiraz symposium. He’d basically trashed the entire Australian wine industry for producing nothing but “raspberry motor oil” – but did concede that there was one winery in the entire country worth its while: Clonakilla.As luck would have it, Clonakilla isn’t far from the Hume Highway (that’s the road from Melbourne to Sydney for your Americans). It’s just a short detour of about half an hour and besides, I’d never really seen Canberra.I made the detour.An hour later, I realized that I’d probably just had one of the key experiences of my life. Clonakilla winemaker Tim Kirk heard our ridiculous Californian accents in their small tasting room and decided to come check it out; we wound up being invited to taste barrel samples, which had never happened before. I was incredibly grateful and embarrassed, really – it’s unusual for anyone to be that generous in my personal cultural experience, so I didn’t know how to comport myself. To thank Tim, I gave him the bottle of Le Cigare Volant that I’d bought in Melbourne; he gave me a bottle of port in return.The next morning, after breakfast, I bought the most expensive bottle of wine I’d ever bought in my life: a bottle of the Clonakilla shiraz viognier. It had been sold out at the winery, but one shop in Clonakilla still had some. It cost me US $28, which was unspeakably expensive. (It now sells for US $65, assuming anyone has any in stock, just six years later). Julian and I drank that bottle together; it was the beginning of a beautiful friendship (what can I say? As a Californian, I’m prone to inane movie quotes from time to time).Today’s a typical San Diego June day. It’s cool, mostly sunny. I headed into our tiny 1940s garage and grabbed the first thing I could find, and it was a Clonakilla wine. If there was ever proof that a winery’s generosity to a total stranger can pay dividends, it’s the simple fact that I’ve been a loyal customer ever since.In the glass, the wine is behaving French, not Australian. There are tiny particles clinging to the side of the glass; the color is noticeably young – surprising for a five year old wine – all crimson blacks and vibrancy. The nose is unspeakable; by that I meant that it shuts even the most loquacious wino up faster than anything short of La Tâche. It could be meatloaf. It could be an old leather bound book that fell behind your carrel in the library basement. It could be sheets that have been in the closet too long. It could be fresh blackberry jam with demerara sugar. It could be any number of things. It is, at any rate, fascinating.It appears to be a very young wine at times; at other times, aged notes sneak in. They don’t detract from the wine, not at all; instead, they serve as a gentle reminder that this wine, too, will fade at one point, so you’d best drink it now. There’s bright acidity, yet not too much; the initial attack fades quickly and you’re left with a sweetness supported by nicely resolved tannins, a certain smoothness, and a gentle finish that reminds me of croutons and pancetta. At other times, there are decidedly smoky notes, bacon fat, water crackers, and possibly even something like roses. I’ll stop now; I’m sure you get the drift.In my room, it’s 2002 again and I’m standing outside in the Australian sun wondering how the hell this stuff exists. It’s a religious moment as I’ll ever have. I’m grateful to have a glass of this in front of me, I really am.ClonakillaPrice: US $17.99Closure: CorkDate tasted: June 2008

Meerea Park The Aunts Shiraz 2003

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One from the cellar. As an aside, the first bottle I had of this wine was tainted with a strikingly unpleasant mercaptan rubber cabbage stink, and was replaced courteously and promptly by the winery. All subsequent bottles have been clean as a whistle.More than a dash of smoky, sweet oak; it’s prominent but also complementary to the fruit’s aroma profile, which is ripe, dense and savoury. There’s almost liqueur-like black cherry and some Hunter earth, maybe even a hint of cured pork, dark and slightly brooding in character. Entry is flavoursome, with good immediacy and some interesting textural complexity. There’s nice mix of silkiness and powdery phenolics. Full bodied, the wine’s mid-palate is still quite focused and primary, sweetly oak heavy as per the nose, and strikes me as resembling adult bubble gum (if such a thing existed). Nice presence on the after palate, where the wine lightens a little and prepares for a finish of excellent length and deliciously ripe tannins. It’s not typically Hunter in style, but that’s neither here nor there, as the wine is coherent in and of itself. Overall, the impression is flavoursome and rustic, but never obvious or clumsy. Try this wine with equally assertive food — a tasty dish of pasta and rich ragu would be perfect.Meerea ParkCost: $A25Closure: CorkDate tasted: May 2008

Lake's Folly Cabernets 2005

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Anyone not familiar with Max Lake’s writings on food and wine is well advised to acquaint themselves with his rather extensive bibliography. He is a gourmand of the finest sort; an unashamed sensualist who is not afraid to deeply question the sources of his pleasure. It’s been a while now since Mr Lake sold the Lake’s Folly winery to Peter Fogarty, and the wines have been made for some time not by the Lakes but by Rodney Kempe. No matter — the grapes are the same and the general approach remains constant.

The 2005 Cabernets is a blend of 68% Cabernet Sauvignon, 13% Petit Verdot, 11% Merlot and 8% Shiraz.A dense, dark colour, with bright flashes of purple and red. The nose presents a delightfully inscrutable aroma profile. Inscrutable because it is deep beyond immediate perception, yet offers tantalising glimpses of ripe fruit, dried flowers, meatiness and high quality oak. As with the best wines, it knows more than you do.

From entry onwards, fruit of the highest quality coats the tongue, spreading flavour that is both intense and of satisfying density. It unfolds in a focused line, widening steadily towards the mid-palate. Acid provides most of the structure through the entry and mid-palate, but it’s a subtle acidity, fine and subservient to the density of the fruit. Medium bodied, this wine is as much Hunter Valley as it is Cabernet, and its character will feel like coming home to enthusiasts of this region. Others, though, may lament its tendency towards regionality, perhaps at the expense of overt varietal character. Personally, I love it. The after palate remains focused, while lightening a little in tone. Impressively long finish, as velvet tannins coat the mouth with intensely sweet berry flavour.

Wine is an intersection of region, producer and consumer, at its best when these elements are positively aligned. I could drink this every day, so well does it match my idea of good wine.

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