Tag Archives: South Australia

Wirra Wirra Church Block 2005

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This wine’s full subtitle is “Cabernet Sauvignon – Shiraz – Merlot;” 47%, 35% and 18% respectively. 


Red-purple in colour, moderately dense. Nose bursts forth with sweet, ripe fruit of the blue and black variety. It’s very ripe, perhaps overripe for some tastes (there’s something almost spirity about it), but there’s no doubting how generous and up front is its flavour. There are also elements of spice and chocolate that squeeze in alongside all that fruit and add some savoury interest. The palate is dominated by more ripe fruit, quite sweet, and again perhaps too big for some tastes. Wines in this style succeed or fail almost entirely on the quality and interest of the fruit’s flavour profile and, in this wine’s favour, there’s at least some complexity of fruit character. But it’s unchallenging and, I suspect, designed for consumption without too much analysis. Acidity is soft and fine. Tannins prickle the finish but aren’t especially prominent or drying. Rather, still more fruit gushes through the after palate and sticks around for a little time on the finish. 

You have to admire a wine style that is so sure of what it is, even if it’s not entirely to your taste. We had this with dinner and it’s not a very food friendly style, lacking the structure to truly complement a meal. Instead, I would drink this on its own, perhaps even after dinner, to warm your insides and satisfy that craving for a McLaren Vale fruit bomb we all feel from time to time…
 
Price: $A21
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: January 2008


Yalumba Y Series Sangiovese Rosé 2006

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Straight outta the fridge, opening a bottle of this is going to get you an dark, coppery pink wine, bright and clean in the glass, that smells largely of uncomplicated strawberries. Give it time to warm up a bit, and the smells spread out, becoming a little bit peppery, with something like freshly churned butter as well. Eventually, it all tends more towards fresh Rainier cherries.In the mouth, there’s a very slight spritziness that’s a bit distracting from the actual wine, which is fairly simple, but with an interesting dark downturn on the finish. There seems to be just a bit of residual sugar, which is more than adequately balanced by the wine’s acidity. It finishes broadly, satisfyingly, with notes of rhubarb and mace. It’s all less complicated than the best pink wines from Australia (or California), and far from a Provençal rosé, but it’s a lot of fun and a welcome change from sickly sweet white zinfandel.Yalumba

Price: US $9.99
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: January 2008—Julian and I visited Yalumba last February, and had a fascinating discussion about wine trends with the tasting room staff. Apparently this wine is selling like crazy down there; up here in California, pink wines are still desperately naff and no amount of marketing is going to change that, at least not for the foreseeable future. White zinfandel was the #4 best selling wine in the USA for a long, long time – and that started to change in 2006, when imported pinot grigio began to outsell it (something to do with the ongoing middlebrow fascination with Tuscany, I suppose?). My guess is that it’s going to take time for pink wine to become popular or trendy – we have to shake off that white zin hangover first.FWIW, some excellent California pink wines to try would include Pax (wonderful, but expensive; the winery seems to quickly becoming a Parkerized mail-list-only outfit to boot), Bonny Doon (their Vin Gris de Cigare has gone from strength to strength in the oughts), and JK Carriere Glass (a rosé of Pinot noir; I’ve never actually tasted it but I love their other wines so darn much that I can’t imagine it’s anything other than wonderful).

Offcuts

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To my shame, I’ve been drinking even more than I’ve been writing up while in New Zealand. Here are a few bits and pieces of marginal interest.Mission Estate Winery Hawkes Bay Merlot 2006I used most of this wine for cooking but swilled a glass once the casserole was underway. And whaddya know, it’s actually pretty good. Nice fruit, easygoing structure, no boiled lollies in sight. Definitely on the riper end of the spectrum for Merlot, and none the worse for that. Great quaffer. Wish all Aussies at this price point were as good. Fruit comes from various vineyards in the Hawkes Bay region, including the Gimblett Gravels.Mission Estate WineryPrice: $NZ14Closure: StelvinDate tasted: December 2007Jacob’s Creek Shiraz 2005I don’t know what this wine is doing in here, but let’s just say that it was offered, and as we all know, it’s rude not to accept a gift.It’s actually not too bad, certainly a fault-free wine at the very least. The fruit flavour has that confected red fruit quality that screams “industrial” to me, but hey, it’s tasty and has lots of flavour. Not bad.Jacob’s CreekPrice: $NZ9Closure: StelvinDate tasted: December 2007Matua Valley Late Harvest Muscat 2006I was having cravings the other night in Gisborne (just a few nights before the big earthquake, no less) and wandered up to the local supermarket to grab some dessert and, of course, wine to go with. I have no idea what grapes are in this wine, although the label does, at least, let the purchaser know that they are from the Gisborne wine region.There’s some nice, sweet fruit flavour here, a little “jasmine tea” in character, but harsh acidity quite overwhelms any sense of flavour. It’s not the sort of acidity that is cleansing or sprightly — it’s just harsh and unbalanced. Oh well.Matua Valley Price: $NZ12 (375ml)Closure: StelvinDate tasted: December 2007

Yalumba Bush Vine Grenache 2006

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Wines don’t have to be “super premium” to be worthwhile. If you’re like me, you’re always looking for wines to drink with dinner during the week, “everyday” wines in the best, most enjoyable sense of the word. I went hunting in the bottlo tonight for just such a wine to accompany gourmet pizza. I almost went for a Sangiovese, but this one pleaded with me to try it. I’m nothing if not attuned to the needs of others.


Fruit bomb, spice, a bit of oak. There you have it, that’s about as accurate a tasting note as one could write about this wine. Aromas are lovely and generous, with loads of raspberry jam type fruit, along with sweet spices (think cloves) and a hint of vanilla oak. It’s simple, but that’s ok because it’s a wine that knows what it is, and does it well.  The palate is a seamless continuation of the flavour profile discerned on the nose. Medium bodied, easygoing, well judged acidity to keep things peppy, but no significant tannins to speak of. The wine is really well constructed, texturally, and sits well in the mouth in this regard. With some time, the flavour developed a slightly medicinal, cough syrup note, that I rather liked. 

The pizza we had with this wine was strongly flavoured, plenty of pepperoni and so on. The wine stood up to this assault well due to the generosity of its fruit flavour, and counterbalanced the savoury pizza with sweet spicy fruit. Not a bad combination at all.

Price: $A17
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: December 2007

McGuigan Family Cabernet Sauvignon Barossa Valley 2005

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On the nose, there’s maple syrup and brown sugar, with an autumn woodsy spice. There’s also a bit of barnyard or poo, or perhaps sulfur, but it’s barely noticeable. The overall effect is of dusty roses and woodspice. It’s a pert, medium red in the glass and slightly watery at the rim; it looks perfectly matched to steak and potatoes.In the mouth, the wine is weightier than you might expect, with rich, smooth tannins contributing to a smoky, chocolate, mulberry palate. The finish is graceful and finishes the line beautifully. Delicious and incredibly good value to boot.McGuigan Family [presumably exclusively at fresh&easy in the USA]

Price: US $6.99
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: December 2007

d'Arenberg The Dead Arm Shiraz 2002

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Recently, a good friend of mine remarked that they’d never had a d’Arenberg wine that hadn’t disappointed them. Thinking about it for a second, I almost agreed, but then thought back to a fortified Shiraz that wasn’t at all bad, and of course their cheap white wine usually isn’t bad either. Which brings me to the three bottles of The Dead Arm that have been languishing in my cellar for years. I wouldn’t have ordinarily bought them, but a wine shop in southern California somehow managed to score a few cases at a closeout price of roughly half what they usually cost. Of course, the reviews at the time were universally middling, but I figured what the heck: surely this is just idiosyncratically good and therefore confusing, right?On the nose, there’s lots of sweet cherry fruit along with a dirty eucalyptus mint that’s hinting at the bottle age this wine’s racked up over the last few years. Rich, candied meat also shows itself eventually, as well as a distinct medicinal tang not unlike St. Joseph’s children’s aspirin (think oranges spiked with embalming fluid). There’s also a subtle supporting note of quality wood, which sets it all off rather well, I think. At this point in the wine’s evolution, it schizophrenically struts between thick, rich, young Aussie red and older, mature, claret. It’s entertaining.The entry on the palate is at first remarkably shut down, and then the acids hit you: huge, grabby, shocking acids. It’s all surprisingly rustic and more suited to a cheap vin du pays d’Oc than an often-hyped, fairly expensive Aussie shiraz. Then, it all dies off with a whimper. What was that? Another mouthful reveals a midweight palate, along with generic, unidentifiable fruitiness, the same surprising acidity, a bit of bottle age, and then… bupkus. Eventually, some gum-assaulting, drying tannins show up as well as a bit of funkiness, but even that’s curiously half-assed. With some time and air, it started to resolve itself a bit more in terms of its flavor profile, but honestly? This wine probably wasn’t a good deal even at half price, and it seems to be drying out and dying at the moment.d’Arenberg

Price: US $24.99 (distributor closeout; current release is US $54.99)
Closure: Cork
Date tasted: December 2007—On second thought, about ninety minutes later, I realized that this wine actually is displaying a low level of cork taint, which is a bummer. A lot of the muted flatness is more likely the result of TCA; it’s clear to me now that it’s difficult to distinguish between “bottle age” and TCA, at least for me. I’m glad to see that d’Arenberg have moved to screwcaps for some of their production, but it’s too late for me – no way to return this wine given its age, and it’s on its way to the recycle bin, alas.

The Black Chook Shiraz Viognier 2006

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The modern, and painfully fashionable, Shiraz Viognier blend exists on a knife edge, stylistically. Too much Viognier and the wine, for my taste, slips into clumsy territory, the extroverted Viognier dominating partner Shiraz and creating a wine of cloying obviousness (if that is even a word). The right amount, however, adds perfume and mouthfeel and complexity that is quite rewarding. What can we expect from a McLaren Vale blend of these varieties selling for about $A17?Alas, a whole bunch of dried apricot and boiled lollies. On the nose, dried apricot, bright red fruit and, well, not a lot else. The aromas have a confected and slightly thin character that feels, to me, a bit industrial. The palate shows more of the same, with slightly less apricot and a whole lot of bright red fruit, wrapped up in a medium bodied palate that lacks significant structure or direction. Rather, it’s an easygoing wine of generous, though again rather confected, fruit flavour, nothing too heavy or challenging. Mouthfeel is slippery. The wine sort of disappears away on the finish; not that it dies prematurely, but rather it simply fails to register anything notable as it slides to a close. I didn’t like this wine much, as the bright, sweet fruit flavours were, for my taste, not balanced out by structure or any savouriness of flavour. I should note, however, that the other half rather liked it. I’d serve this wine at BBQs, and make sure it was a bit below room temperature.Ben Riggs (winemaker)Price: $A17Closure: StevinDate tasted: December 2007

Yalumba Wild Ferment Eden Valley Chardonnay 2005

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I’ve had this wine before but, interestingly, this wine showed a lot tighter than the previous bottle.  It’s labelled “Wild Ferment” and there are certainly some super funky aromas hanging around, along with some matchsticky sulfur, citrus and white stonefruit. Most definitely super complex for a Chardonnay at this price point. The entry is quite linear and surprisingly, considering the nose, primarily structural, leading to a middle palate that is flavoursome but also very focused and acid-driven. Here we get moderately intense grapefruit and white peach notes, more funky flavours and light sulfur, along with astringent acidity and some oak-derived flavours. The acid structure takes the wine over a little and drives it through to a finish that is quite drying, perhaps with some phenolics coming into play. I paid $A14 for this wine, and I would expect a technically correct but quite uninteresting Chardonnay at this price point. This wine totally overdelivers and presents not only good winemaking but some personality too. We had this with a snack of Italian bread and macadamia salsa, and the wine responded well to food, although it didn’t soften as much as I thought it might in the face of oily food. YalumbaPrice: $A14Closure: StelvinDate tasted: December 2007

Suxx 2006

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Don’t laugh, but I sniffed this the second I unscrewed the cap and thought whoa. What is this, Gucci for Men? It’s got a full on nose of sandalwood, with a curious scent of camphor and velvet as well. I’ve never smelled a wine like this before. How the hell did they make this stuff? It’s just so huge, so jammy… amazing, and somehow floral as well. Raspberries and roses?It’s so dark that it looks like it should be in a Mont Blanc bottle. Taste-wise, it’s again pretty damn big: brooding, dark, earthy, and with an almost medicinal, herbal, minty edge to it. Amazingly, it doesn’t feel particularly alcoholic, which is a huge surprise given that this is supposedly in the 16-17% range: the finish is not hot, but very well balanced and exceedingly smooth, tapering off into a woodsy, sweet trail of incense and spice. It all works surprisingly well.SuxxPrice: US $16.99Closure: StelvinDate tasted: December 2007

Cape Barren Native Goose McLaren Vale Shiraz 2005

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A slightly dicey restaurant wine list last night led to the selection of this wine, its merit being primarily that we hadn’t tasted it before. McLaren Vale, Shiraz, 2005: so far so good.

Fruit-forward, slightly thin aromas greet the nose with enthusiasm, but there’s something a bit icky and confected about the red fruit. I would describe it as an easy, commercial style. Not much oak influence. The palate is medium bodied and quite linear, introducing more confected, bright red fruits to the middle palate and, less successfully, some rather harsh, disjointed acid. This continues on through the after palate to a finish that is marked by a few, slightly coarse and uneven tannins.

We had this wine with pizza and it went quite well, although the acidity remained a bit rough and ready despite the food. It’s just not a very interesting wine, frankly, although there’s nothing especially wrong with it either. I can’t detect much regionality in its flavour profile, which for me is a particular shame as I’m fond of the dark chocolate and earth overtones often found in McLaren Vale Shiraz. Drink if you don’t want to be challenged.

Cape Barren
Price: $A20
Closure: Stelvin
Date tasted: November 2007