BURIED TREASURE

I’ve been without a wine cellar for over a decade, and have kept my wine in well-insulated cardboard boxes, sealed and stacked in hallway cupboards, and under beds. Risky Business, I know, but I got away with it as I reported in the post High Risk or Madness? Longtime Wine Storage in an Apartment.

The downside of this kind of box storage is that you can’t reach or even see individual bottles, or even what 6-packs are near the bottom of the stack. Whenever you want to get down there, you’re in for laborious box-shifting. We moved house a few weeks ago, and the boxes made moving the cellar a lot easier since most of the wines are packed already.

One upside of this kind of storage is finding pleasant surprises and long-forgotten gems. From the beginning, Best Wines Under $20 was about finding good quality wines that didn’t cost an arm and a leg. I found the $20 ceiling a bit restrictive early on and lifted it to $25. This year, we’ve included bargains in the $25 – $40 range as a regular feature, wines like Oakridge and Dappled Chardonnays, Wynns black label Cabernets, and many more. It’s most of all about value for money, and there’s a distinct lift in quality with some of these $30 beauties.

Beyond that, it gets murky. Is the $60 Flametree SRS chardy really that much better then the $30 beauties from Oakridge or Dappled? Is the Penfolds bin 407 Cabernet that much better than the Wynns black label? Gary Walsh at the Winefront calls the high prices of these mid-level Penfolds bin reds ‘the elephant in the room.’ I’d call them outrageous for what are typically 93 / 94 point wines. I’d love to put the Kilikanoon Meymans Shiraz Cabernet 2018 up against the Penfolds Bin 389 2018, and I bet it would win. These pennies are trading on the glory of their ancestors, while the company keeps adding more and more labels and fiddling with the packaging instead of focusing on the winemaking.

WHITES

Devil’s Ridge Eden Valley Riesling 2015 – this was $10 at Kemenys a few years ago, and I wish I’d bought a case or 2. Maturing flavour with real depth and length, balance by fine acid. 2015 was a far better year in South Australia than I expected, given the intense heat wave that hit just before vintage time and saw winemakers trying to deal with grapes from different coming in virtually in the same week. The Rieslings were full-bodied and forward in their youth, but over the years developed more refinement. That’s not something I’ve witnessed before.

Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2017 – $10 at Dan M’s. Over the last 6 months of 2020, the Dan M store closest to us cleared out whole lines of wines. Woodlands Cabernet Merlot was going for $18, Montes Reserve Cabernets and chardies form Chile for the same price, and the basic chardies for $10. These were serious bargains, several years old and in their prime. Every Dan M’s store carries its own stock, so I could recommend these deals but I could take advantage of them.

I’d bought some of this when it was first released, but the bottles I opened over the next couple of years were mildly disappointing. Then a few months ago, they hit their straps, producing those classic notes of apricot kernels and lychees; smooth texture was the finishing touch. I served it with my salmon and goats cheese-omelette on a hunch, and it was an instant match. I’ve been looking for a wine to go with eggs for decades.

Give it a try – a few DM stores still have stocks, but not at the special price. Jim Murphy’s appears to have some 2017 left, but the landing page is showing the 2018. Vintage Cellars has stock at $21, the landing page says 2017 and shows the right label but that’s no guarantee …

Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2015 Museum Release – $17 at Vintage Cellars. this is a cracker, a near perfect 5 year-old Clare Riesling, made by Peter Munro somewhere in the bowels of Treasury Wine Estates. 2015 was a very hot year, yet this wine has a fine, long line of acid that supports the classic florals, limes and bath powder.
It shows no hints of kero or toast or honey yet, in fact it’s still crisp and crunchy but richer and fuller than its younger siblings. The precision and linearity of this Riesling are exceptional, and so is the value. Will live for a long time. 95+ points.

REDS

Hidden Label Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2010 – I bought a few of these Leconfield Cabernets for about $18 about 7 years ago, and this is the first one I opened. It’s in top form, with rich and ripe cassis fruit, pencil shavings oak and a silky smooth palate. Just gorgeous drinking; even Tracey kept coming back for more, and she restricts here red wine intake.

Teusner The Riebke Shiraz 2010. I bought a 6-pack of this for $18 each about the same time, and this is another red from that great 2010 vintage that seemed to make sure everything was in perfect balance. Red berries and pepper, a touch of leather and a lick of oak, all in perfect harmony

The Devil’s Lair Hidden Cave Cabernet Shiraz 2010 was another of my early finds back around 2013. Bought lots of it for $14 back then, and you can still find later versions for less than $20 – the 2014 at Shorty’s Liqueur for example.

It’s one of those labels other wine writers have studiously ignored for years, yet this is a red of surprising quality given the large quantities produced by this TWE-owned winery. It’s not the most complex of reds but it’s as smooth as velvet, a classic cool Margaret River Cabernet with a lift from the Shiraz adding interest. If you have any of this left, drink it soon.

Craggy Range Te Kahu Merlot Blend 2015. I love this wine, a Bordeaux right bank blend from across the Tasman. You wouldn’t get a St Emilion of this quality for less than $100. The Te Kahu sells for around $30 but the local DM store ran it out for $22 late last year. You can be lucky.

Robert Oatley Signature GSM 2014 – well under $20 when I bought it, left it alone for a couple of years and found a jarring note when I opened a bottle – somewhere between to much sulfur and corked wine except that it was under screwcap. Then a miracle occurred: I’d steered clear of it for several years and decided to check again: the jarring note had gone; the wine had matured of course but this is a rare event – faults usually get worse not better.

Ringbolt 21 Barriques Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 – Bought some of this wine (for about $28) following a lunch put on by Yalumba at Bistro Monceur, with retired winemaker Peter Gambetta in charge of proceedings. I was impressed with this stylish red seven years ago, and it’s a beauty. There’s a core of fine cassis fruit wrapped in classy French oak, great line and length with a firm, fine-grained tannin finish. Another seven years will see it at its peak.

Honorable Mention

Wynns Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 – $33 at Winestar. My pick for the best red I drank in 2020 (special events excepted), and the great news is that you can still buy this 8-year-old classic at a lower price than most shops ask for the 2018. It’s a tight field of great Coonawarra Cabernets, but the 2013 has become my favourite among the wines made from 2009 to 2018.

I can’t improve on Huon Hooke’s review: ‘Deep, young purple/red colour, very fresh looking – and smelling. Fruit-driven blackberry, raspberry and blackcurrant nuances, with negligible herbal high-notes. The wine is intense and powerful yet also very elegant – moreso than the 2012 – and the fruit does all the talking. Strong but super-fine tannins. The wine has perfect balance in all respects: oak, tannin, acid and extract as well as flavour. A great wine. Drink 2017 to 2045; 97 Points.’

Farewell to an Old Friend

Topers Chardonnay – the 2013 was a big hit several years ago, when we negotiated a special price for subscribers with Jonathan Bell who owned the brand and the vineyard at ‘Kelvin Grove’ near Canowindra.

The 2014 didn’t grab me, and none was made in 2015. The 2016 was a beauty, not as immediately seductive as the 2013 but ‘just a really nice Chardonnay’ as one of our subscribers said. Sadly, that was the last Topers chardy made.

Following the death of his beloved wife in 2017, Jonathan retired and sold the vineyard (we know not to whom). He is the same vintage as James Halliday, and went through law school at Sydney Uni with him in the late fifties.

The wine was made by MADREZ Wine Services in Orange, set up by Lucy Maddox and Chris Derrez who describe themselves as ‘ghost writers’ for some of the best-known wines in the Central Ranges – Colmar Estate, Cooks Lot, Twisted River, Burnbrae, and many more. They’re very smart winemakers – Lucy made the Best Winemaker shortlist at GTW in 2018 – check Peter Bourne’s story at the link.

I was delighted when I found a 6-pack of the 2016 Chardonnay while moving my cellar; I thought I was down to my last couple of bottles. This has been our go-to white for the last couple of years and, as usual, I wish I’d bought more than 6 dozen.

The wine has been at its peak for about 18 months. And I suspect it will stay there for another 6 or 12. So please drink a toast to Jonathan Bell, and to Lucy and Chris, next time you open a bottle of Topers. And there’s no need to tell your dinner guests that a toper is a drunkard.

When I wandered around the local Dan Murphy’s a couple of weeks ago, I saw Wynns Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2017 on the shelf with a $45 price tag. No kidding. The same wine is $32 at 1^st Choice, and it’s not on special. It’s 33 at Vintage Cellars (3 for $100). So much for the mega merchant who beats every price.

Now you know that I’m a big fan of the black label Cab Sav. I have a half dozen of each vintage from 2015 to 2006 in my cellar, except for the 2011 and 2007. 2017 was a wet vintage, with very little black label produced, yet here was DM asking $45 for the 2017. Checking other options, I found the much better and more mature 2012 at Kemenys for $29. I shared that good news with you, and trust you took advantage.

Timing is everything

I thought about buying more 2012 but I’m not short of black label Cabernet. I mulled it over for a week or more, then decided to grab a few more bottles. Sadly, it was all gone but now there was a 2013 on offer on Kemeny’s website for the same price. I checked my notes, vaguely remembering that the last bottle of this I opened was a winner.
My last review and others are very good, so I didn’t mull this around for too long. I put the order together online, adding a few other wines to the 3 black labels, then checked the basket and found that the 2013 had vanished into thin air. I checked Kemeny’s list of Wynns wines and drew a blank. All gone.

Wynns to the Rescue

As I swallowed my disappointment, an email arrived from Wynns with a special offer: a 6-pack of 2013 black label Cab Sav for $198. $33 dollars a bottle. I didn’t really want that many bottles so I did some more mulling around. While I was busy mulling, another email from Wynns arrived, reminding me that I hadn’t used the $25 gift voucher they’d sent me for my birthday 3 weeks back.
I wondered if that voucher would work on the 2013 black label special offer. Most of the time you don’t get 2 bites of the same cherry, but Wynns is more generous. The bottom line was now $173 for the 6-pack, which is just under $29 a bottle, and then I discovered that the freight was free. So I stopped mulling and bought the 6-pack.

Checking the member offers online at DM’s this morning for the BBW, I saw that one of the offers is a 6-pack of the Wynns black label Cab Sav – presumably the 2017 – for $204 or $34. Dearer than their main opposition, much dearer than the museum release from the winery – some member offer, that.
Yesterday the 2017 was still $45 on the shelf. So much for the mega wine merchant that beats every price

Greed is Good

On a shelf around the corner from the Wynns black label, closer to the back wall, I saw some Penfolds labels I hadn’t seen before:

• Penfolds The Noble Explorer Shiraz 2017
• Penfolds The Creative Genius Cabernet Sauvignon 2017
• Penfolds The Commander In Chief Shiraz Cabernet 2017

These wines were released a year ago for Penfolds’ 175^th anniversary, but I can’t recall any fanfare about this release from that time. ‘The ‘Tribute Range’ is a set of limited edition drops dedicated to four of the most interesting, influential characters in Penfolds’ almost two-century history,’ GQ gushes. ‘Naturally, they’re all set to be vying for a place in the wine collections of just about any enthusiast.’

The wines are dedicated to the memories of Max Schubert, Ray Beckwith, founder Christopher Rawson Penfold and his wife Mary. The wine that stands apart on the left is the one dedicated to Max, with a price tag of $500. The other 3 sell for $25 to $40 depending on the source.
So the founder and his wife, and Ray Beckwith whose breakthroughs in the lab were a key element of the success of the early Granges and Bin reds, have to be satisfied with $40 wines. Quality-wise it’s in Koonunga Hill Seventy-Six territory, says The Winefront of one of these. Their scores are 91, 91 and 92+. So they charge $40 for a $20 wine. Is that all these hallowed names are worth?

Marketing is Rubbish

I’ve tasted Koonunga Hill 76 reds over the years, and they left the heights unscaled. So why insult the founders and the lab genius? This is supposed to be a tribute to those who made the biggest contributions to Penfolds’ success. And what marketing moron decided to throw one $500 wine and three $40 wines into the same special release?
There’s only one piece of good news here: they’ve thrown out the cheap Chinese Restaurant packaging of the Max’s range. Richard Farmer wrote years ago that Penfolds treated Max better when he was dead than when he lived. I’m not sure about that, not after the kitschy wrappers of the Max’s range, but their treatment of the great man at his retirement sure was despicable: they gave Max a Citizen watch when he retired after working for Penfolds all his life, not the Rolex he was hoping for.

Max retired in 1975, when Penfolds reds were forging a huge reputation for a company that still saw itself as a maker of port wine just 10 years earlier. This was the man who saved the company from certain ruin by revitalising its entire winemaking infrastructure back in the fitfties.

The Renegade?

Then they ran an ad campaign that framed him as a renegade, written by some airhead (and approved by a marketing manager) who didn’t understand the difference between a renegade and a maverick. More here: Max Schubert, Ray Beckwith and the Making of Penfolds.

Then again, Penfolds marketing has long been rubbish. ‘Treasury Wines are the Bogans of the Australian Industry,’ writes The Owl. ‘Penfolds in those [Max’s] days was a rather crass company that thought the epitome of entertaining clients was inviting them to watch St George run around playing rugby league. A glass or two of Minchinbury would be quite upmarket enough for Kogarah Oval, and Max Schubert’s name was not helping to sell winecasks.’

I remember years ago someone telling me that the wine list of the St George Leagues Club dining room always had several vintages of Grange on it, at lower prices than the sharpest retailers. Now I know why. Minchinbury became a housing estate decades ago, but the name has recently been rebirthed and now adorns  some cheap wines at Dan Murphy’s, courtesy of The Pinnacle Drinks range. Pinnacle is owned by Woolworths, and it appears that it has acquired the hallowed brand.

More is Better

I haven’t thought about Penfolds for years, so I checked the website while I wrote this, and found that their collection of special wines had exploded. There must be close to 100 labels in the Penfolds Collection, where there used to be fewer than a dozen – Bin 707, Bin 389, St Henri, Bin 28 etc. – and the chintz has moved upmarket.

But that’s not all

Suddenly there’s a new range of brandies, which look a bit different from the Hospital Brandy of old. Perhaps Peter Gago has been told to churn out more products Penfolds can flog to the Chinese.

He’s even gone to Champagne to launch a JV with a house over there, for another range of bottles to make a buck out of – 280 bucks to be precise. Why on earth wouldn’t he team up with some of our makers and rebirth the Minchinbury label?

‘Penfolds today launched the first of its international explorations,’ wrote CM at the Winefront, ‘ a collaboration between itself and independent French house Champagne Thienot.’ That’s quite a clanger from a guy who has written so well for so long. But Gago tops that: ‘we’re hoping aspirationally that this project continues for a long time.’

The bottom line: ‘The genius is that Penfolds and Champagne go together in winemaking, marketing and world-domination terms like chocolate and cream. Prediction is that this collab will work spectacularly, if not in Australia then most definitely in “key markets”.’

Smart Wineries

Penfolds and Wynns share the same parent – TWE – but it’s easy to see that they’re adopted children because they couldn’t be more different. Everything Wynns has done has a touch of class, from the labels to the wines. You won’t find super-ripe reds here, pumped up with alcohol and oak, and you sure won’t find crass labels or packaging. Wynns and Penfolds are like Mercedes and HSV Holdens.

Wynns added new labels to their range, tasteful labels and just a handful of them. And the wines are distinctive as well. Wynns must have a different product manager from Penfolds. That’s a good thing, and I hope it doesn’t change anytime soon.
Wynns occasionally makes offers that are really attractive, and even their standard website prices aren’t much higher than those of the the big retailers. That’s pretty smart, and I wish more wineries would match the prices we find on main street.

Dappled

Selling direct to the public gives the wineries better returns. This used to be hard work in the tasting room but is less so online. In my recent survey of our top Chardonnays, I found the Dappled Appelation 2019 one of the best chardies you could buy for less than $50. Dappled was Halliday’s Best New Winery of 2018. There’s not a lot of this made, and most wine merchants have run out. It’s modern in style but avoids the grapefruit pith and some of the struck matches. It’s crystalline, seamless, nothing overdone, perfect pitch. Here’s the Winefront’s take on it:

‘Shaun Crinion of Dappled is under a fair amount of pressure to increase his prices – from various quarters – though he remains committed to keeping them as low as he possibly can. The prices will no doubt have to increase soon but they don’t offer extraordinary value for money by accident; Crinion is determined to keep them as accessible as possible. Personally I wish there were more winemakers like him.

‘This is another stellar release. It’s a wine of sheer quality, hands down. Flint, matchstick funk, pure nectarine-grapefruit-and-white-peach fruit, a ginger-like note and a smokiness through the finish. It has tremendous length and it feels uncompromised all the way along. Yes it’s flinty/funky but within that style it’s tremendous. And with air it just gets better. 95+ Points’, Campbell Mattinson, TWF

The price is $30 at the winery where you also get 10% off your first order, i.e. $27 a bottle. The discount code is ‘welcome’. I bought a 6-pack a month or two back, and now I bought another one. Easy as, like the young ones are fond of saying. I hope you can keep your prices on the sane side, Shaun. Penfolds Bin 311 2019 sells for around $50, and is not in the same class.

Many of you have told me that you buy directly from your favourite wineries, and grab some really good deals when they’re on offer. I can’t monitor wineries – there are 5000 of them – as well as wine merchants, but I’ll ask you to keep sharing the best deals with me please.

Guest Post from subscriber Kevin, the Tamar Man

“Subscribers of BWU20 may be aware of the decision of the relevant part of the Chinese Government to investigate wine sourced from Australia as being “dumped” into the Chinese wine market.  That is to say, that Australian wine is being offered for sale in China as prices less than the cost of production.

See, for example – https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-08-27/chinese-australian-wine-insiders-say-no-dumping-no-subsidy/12602172

This decision to hold an inquiry has sent shock waves through the export part of the Australian wine industry.  Many of the exporters have considerable Chinese investment. Indeed, some of these wine companies are Chinese wholly owned.

Eg. https://weilongwines.com.au/

The implications for the Australian domestic wine market, and in particular BWU20 subscribers are potentially highly significant. One implication is that prices for Australian wine will be reduced as wine companies with significant export orders seek to cut their losses.

Another implication is that there will be a marked increase in the volume of wine being offered for sale on the Australian market with a cork stoppage.  Chinese consumers will not buy screw capped wine, because of their view that the contents can be easily substituted with inferior wine or wines.  I speak from experience:  all wine offered for sale in China has cork stoppage.

So, at the BWU20 wine market segment there will be consumer gains.

For the broader Australian wine industry it is a severe body blow.

Guest Post from subscriber Ron J.

Hi Kim

The article on creating your own wine fridge caught my attention, particularly the issue of wiring in a new thermostat, and I thought it might be worth passing on my experience with a slightly different approach.

I have made a couple of wine fridges and have used brewing controllers from home brew suppliers to save the hassle and cost of wiring in a new thermostat. These work by simply turning the power to fridge on or off at your preset temperature range. I have simply put a small hole through the door seal and poked the temperature sensor through into the fridge. You could put a dab of silicon there to completely seal the hole if you are really fussy.

For the first one I made I used a Keg King (https://www.keg-king.com.au/mkii-10-30amp-temperature-controller-heat-cool.html) which has the capacity to both heat and cool. In a wine fridge application, you would only need the heating option if you had the wine fridge in a location that got cold enough at times to drop the inside temperature of the fridge below your chosen temperature range. Heating works by putting a fermenter heat belt inside the fridge and plugging it into the heating socket on the back of the controller. I haven’t used this function. The Keg King controllers are quoted as accurate to 0.1 degrees, and can be set at very small operating range, allowing for quite constant temperature in the fridge.

(the fridge doesn’t really lie on its side, I turned it so it would fit better in this post – Kim)

For the second fridge I used a cheaper controller that only has one power socket. Cost was below $30.

When I was looking for the first fridge, I tried Gumtree but finding a decent fridge or freezer at a remotely sensible price seemed allusive. In the end I bought a brand new Haier 322L all-fridge on special for less than $400. Packed onto existing shelving, including the door, this could hold over 120 bottles. I haven’t bothered with the wine racks, as this would dramatically reduce the capacity, but it would make it much easier to extract a specific bottle!

The second fridge was the kitchen fridge-freezer which had a problem with the thermostat, in that it wouldn’t turn off and consequently was starting to freeze everything including in the fridge compartment. Given the age, it was not worth repairing. The separate thermostat system means that this was not an issue, as it turns off the power to the fridge (but may be a problem if the separate thermostat fails!!). I have even been able to utilise the freezer compartment, by taping up most of the fan air holes into the freezer and turning the fan to more into the fridge and less into the freezer compartment. The temperature in both compartments stays very similar.

I would have preferred to use a freezer, due to the better insulation, but the fridges work fine, and are generally cheaper to buy.

Regards

Ron

PS: Ron sent more pictures of the other devices, let me know if you want to see them and I’ll send them’

Kim

It’s a logical question that wine lovers ask every year when a new Grange is released – what are the best wines I could buy for $800? We’ve dug deep to come up with a list of seriously good and great wines – here goes:

Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge Vineyard Riesling 2019 – $37 at Nicks -The vines are over 40 years old by now, and have been producing great Rieslings for many years. Unsung heroes in many ways, not getting the kudos they deserve among our top Rieslings. The 2019 is big and rich (13.8%) – the Alsatians would be green with envy, but the balance is perfect. There are florals, some talc, ripe limes and apples backed by minerals, and wet stones on the very long line of fine acid. 96 points.

Jean Luc Mader Riesling Rosacker Grand Cru 2018 – $50 at Winestar. Made from fruit off 60-year-old vines from one of the most famous grand crus in Alsace. The small yields of the 2018 vintage have produced a wine of great intensity, rich citrus fruit and cool minerals. Tremendous depth of fruit and length. 97 points.

Tyrrell’s HVD Semillon 2013 – $26 at MyCellars. Some of the best Hunter Semillons trace their fruit to the old Hunter Valley Distillery vineyard – can you believe they once made brandy from these grapes? This is a classic, developing slowly, showing hints of butter and toast but only hints. Give it time.  96 points

Kooyong Beurrot Pinot Gris 2018 – $25 at Kemenys. In a nutshell, Pinot Gris for grown-ups. Dry and restrained, with apples and pears more savoury than sweet, minerals in the mix, all wrapped in a creamy texture. It’s different kind of Gris. 95 points.

Cullen Amber Wine 2018 – $39 at Different Drop. This is a new wine for me. From Vanya Cullen: ‘This new release of our Amber wine is a blend of Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc selected from our certified Biodynamic vineyard. The wine was left on the skins and fermented partially before being pressed off. The skin maceration went from 9 days to 44 days depending on the parcel. The fruit was processed in different vessels: open fermenters, closed tanks as well as amphorae. This explains some of the complexity and the many layers of this wine. We look at it being a natural step in creative as well as artisanal winemaking.

Dappled Appelation Chardonnay 2019 – $27 at the winery after you take 10% off your first order on a 6-pack. The discount code is ‘welcome’. This is one of the best chardies you can buy for < $50. Dappled was Halliday’s Best New Winery of 2018. The wine is handmade in small quantities, there’s not a lot of it made and most wine merchants have run out. It’s modern in style but avoids the grapefruit pith and the struck matches are under control. It’s crystalline, seamless, classy, nothing overdone, perfect pitch. Yarra Valley finesse with great purity and precision, and there’s no lack of flavour either. 96 points.

Oakridge Local Vineyard Series Henk Vineyard Chardonnay 2018 – $30 at Cloudwine. When it comes to wine at least, we’re still the lucky country. In France or the USA, wines of this and the Dappled’s caliber would be nudging 3 figures. This is a lot of Chardonnay for the money, as Gary from TWF shows in his review (at the link), but he gives it a mean score of 94. Winsor Dobson’s score of 96 points is closer to the mark in my view. It’s richer and fuller than most of Dave Bicknell’s cahrdies.

Turkey Flat Rosé 2020 – $20 at MyCellars where the freight is free for subscribers on any quantity. Consistently among the top Rosés down under, for the last 2 decades at least. Nails the style for those of us who want a bit more than strawberries and cream. Gary’s review at the link is spot on
.
Yabby Lake Red Claw Pinot Noir 2018 – $23 at Kemenys. Made by Yabby Lake on the Mornington Peninsula, this is a terrific Pinot for the money, chock-full of goodies. The dark cherries are strong and joined by charcuterie and forest floor notes, plus some oak polish. There’s real strength and complexity here, and layers of flavour, but another year or two will see the wine rounded out. 94+ points, will be 95 down the track.

Rockburn Pinot Noir 2017 – $39 at Winesquare. Won the trophy for best Pinot at the NZ wine awards a year or two ago. It’s my idea of a Pinot Noir: seductive, rich and velvet soft. Lovely sweet fruits at the core here, good depth of flavour, one could wish for more forest floor elements and dank leaves, but it’s just a joyful Pinot that paired perfectly with duck breasts and caramelised red cabbage. 96 points.

Mount Pleasant Mount Henry Shiraz Pinot Noir 2017 – $28 at Kemenys. 70% Shiraz and 30% Pinot Noir. A one-off. I remember buying Mount Pleasant Shiraz / Pinot Noir blends back in the seventies, when wine writers wrote odes to Mount Pleasant and its reds. The reds I bought and cellared turned out universally ordinary, and the Pinot blends were downright awful.
Checking the reviews from Messrs Walsh and Butler at the link, I’m thinking about forgetting everything and buying some of this.

Mont-Redon Reserve Gigondas 2017 – $55 at Nicks. Gigondas is an appellation in the Southern Rhone Valley that makes rich reds. It’s a big Chateuneuf-du-Pape style at a better price. I haven’t tried this vintage – check Nicks’ review at the link (95 points).

Woodlands ‘Clementine’ Cabernet Merlot Petit Verdot Malbec 2016 – $40 at Nicks. Clementine is Andrew Watson’s daughter, and the wine is a celebration. It’s 55% cabernet sauvignon, 16% malbec, 15% Merlot, 14% Petit Verdot , all matured in French oak (40% new) for 16 months. The fruit comes from the Brooks vineyard in Margaret River’s Willyabrup dress circle. It’s not a feminine wine but full-bodied and concentrated with plenty of tannin to keep it going for years. 96 points. Was Ray Jordan’s top red a couple of years ago.

Wynns Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2006 – $50 at Garnet Cellars. The 2006 and 2012 vintages are the best of this famous line in the last 15 years. The 2006 is rich and ripe and soft but not big; black berries and cassis fill the palate, and the texture is velvet. Outstanding Cabernet. 97 points.

Wynns Coonawarra Black Label Cabernet Sauvignon 2012 (Cellar Release) – $40 at Winestar. A younger, tighter wine with terrific depth of fruit and great line and length. Typical great vintage black label: great drinking now but will be there for the next 20 years, showing a strong resemblance to Peter Pan. 97 points.

Lanson Brut Champagne Gold Label Vintage 2008 – $76 at DM’s. Better than it has any right to be, a rich champagne still on the ascent despite its 12 years. 9 years on lees shows in depth of flavour and and creamy texture. Biscuit and brioche notes in a seamless package, perfectly judged. Drink over the next 5 – 10 years. Bargain champagne. 96 points.

Chateau Guiraud 2016 – $100 at Nicks. This wine tends to be among the richest Sauternes. I haven’t tasted this vintage, so here’s J Suckling’s review. ‘A full-bodied young Sauternes with lots of rich sliced cooked apples and pears. All the same, this remains spicy and energetic with an abundance of dried mushrooms, walnuts and almonds on the finish. Botrytis character comes through nicely already here. 94-95 points.

The Madness of the Wine Market down under

Firstly, why on earth would you do this? There are some very good reasons. At first it would seem obvious to save your pennies and buy a lovely Vintec or Eurocave fridge. Sure, they’re pricey but they look great. Sure to impress your guests. If money is not an object for you then sure, go ahead and splash the cash.

For the rest of us things are a little more interesting. You see those lovely wine fridges with the smoked glass doors have some big down sides. They are designed primarily to look good – which they do. But they skimp on the insulation. Take a look at how thin the sides are. Add the glass front and you’ve got a very inefficient fridge. An average size unit can cost $400 a year to run. Now take a look at any fridge – thicker insulation and a proper door that keeps the cool inside. Now look at a freezer – better again.

As houses get smaller and power gets more expensive people can’t get rid of their upright freezers fast enough. The “pigeon pair” fridge/freezer no longer fits in most houses. Enter the enterprising DIY wine fridge builder. Get ye to Gumtree!

But before snapping up the first thing that comes up we need to consider a couple of things. Main ones being that we don’t want to freeze our wine. And we need to be able to arrange the wine in some sort of rack system inside the cabinet.

The first one is easy. Modified thermostats can be bought on eBay for under $50 with instructions. These will keep your fridge at somewhere between 5 and 20 degrees instead of sub-zero. The key here is to grab a freezer with the older mechanical thermostats. Most use the same type, so installation is plug-n-play. The newer ones that use electronic control are not as easy. If you see a digital display then it’s easier to avoid that unit. Likewise “frost-free” units – these can be made to play the game by disabling the heating cycle but it’s another complication that is good to avoid if you can.

*** Fitting of thermostat involves working with 240V wiring. If you’re not up for this sort of shenanigans then get a proper sparky to help ***

OK, so now we have a lovely wine fridge that keeps a perfect temperature year round. But piling your precious wine in the plastic freezer baskets is less than ideal. This is where you get to exercise your creative flair and skills with hand tools. The key is to choose carefully. Some freezers lend themselves very nicely to our little plan. Others not so much. Nice flat sides with lots of slots are ideal.

I spent a lot of time converting my first freezer. So for the second one I proved that I am a learning animal and bought some bang-together wines racks from eBay and adapted them to fit. You wanna do your sums first. The eBay wine racks come in various sizes, so get your rack measurements noted down and then go freezer hunting with your tape measure in hand. A 200 litre upright freezer should give you room for about 50 bottles. My latest is a Kelvinator 380 litre unit and I’ve squeezed 91 bottles in, courtesy of two eBay 42 bottle (7×6) racks. And a few along the bottom. Held in by some of the horizontal pieces engaging with the slots in the freezer, some construction adhesive and some wooden bracing to the floor of the freezer. Wine is heavy so secure the racks properly.

Example

Freezer was purchased off Gumtree locally for $175 delivered. It was clean, it worked and seals were in good condition. Kelvinator FJ383. 383 litres. Upright. Friendly slots in the side for rack attachment.

Thermostat from eBay for $45 delivered.

Remember these old wineracks?

And here’s the wine fridge with the racks inside

A post by BWU$20 subscriber Pete L

I cook a lot, and I aim for tasty, healthy comfort food that demands no acrobatics. Or ingredients you’ve never heard of, such as lark’s tongues or nightingale fetlocks. I often check recipes online for fresh ideas, and I’m flabbergasted that just about all our high-profile chefs tell us to fry food in ‘vegetable oil.’

First problem: There is no such thing as vegetable oil. You can’t make oil from potatoes, carrots or beans, only Schnaps. Second problem: Most ‘vegetable oils’ are toxic. They’re produced by industrial processes that use solvents, heat, high pressure, stabilizers, bleaches and deodorisers. After you’ve watched this video, the $100 billion ingredient that shows how these oils are made, you won’t ever buy them again.

So why do professional chefs not give a toss? They tell us that any decent meal starts with top quality ingredients, don’t they? And they tell us to fry those top quality ingredients in crap oils? It’s like Michelangelo using no name paint for the Sistine Chapel.

This is Australia 2022, and we make some of the world’s best, nutritious oils, from olives, macadamias and avocadoes. I buy Australian cold-pressed extra virgin olive oil from Woolworths or Coles for $6 a half litre. Can Adam Liaw really not afford to cook with a decent oil? I’ve even seen Canola oil suggested by chefs in their recipes. Guillome Brahimi is the exception – he uses butter for frying.

The short story

I suspect it’s because most of our best chefs learnt their craft in commercial kitchens. If you check the backdoors of most restaurants, even good ones, you see 4 gallon drums of cottonseed oil piled up. Why? Because it’s dirt cheap. It’s actually a seed oil but it’s been lumped in with the vegetable oils, and it’s often blended with other vegetable oils. Proctor & Gamble’s Crisco was the original cottonseed oil.

Cottonseed oil has nothing to recommend it other than its low price. Many packaged foods in our supermarkets contain cottonseed oil or blends that contain it and transfats for stabilty: frozen chips and pizzas, frozen meals, biscuits, cakes, donuts – virtually anything that’s been fried or baked. It contains toxins that are stripped out during processing, and it often contains pesticide residues since cotton is not classified as a food crop, so farmers are free to use as many agrichemicals as they like.

The Good Oils

It won’t come as a surprise that ‘vegetable oils’ aren’t good for us either, since they can turn toxic when used for frying. Polyunsaturated vegetable oils become unstable when exposed to heat, and oxidize easily. The most stable oils / fats are saturated and monounsaturated. A much simpler way to tell good from bad oils is to stick to oils that are ‘natural’, i.e. those made using minimal processing.

My favourite for cooking is Extra Virgin Cold-Pressed Olive Oil. I also use some of the others below, most of all butter, macadamia oil, avocado oil and duck fat. The numbers indicate the ‘smoke points’ of the oils, this is the point where they become unstable and oxidize.

• • Avocado Oil – 270°C
  • Extra Virgin Cold-Pressed Olive Oil – 200°C
  • Sesame oil – 230°C
  • Macadamia Oil – 230°C
  • Butter – 150°C
  • Duck fat – 200°C
  • Coconut oil – 230°C
  • Walnut Oil – 160°C
  • Flaxseed Oil – 107°C

Please note:

Boutique olive oils can have strong flavours, which you may not want in your cooking. Sesame oil also has a distinctive flavour, which plays a role in the overall flavour of Asian foods. Walnut oil and flaxseed oil are delicate Omega-3-rich oils best used in salad dressings. They should be refrigerated once open.

The Bad Oils

This list from the US Heart Foundation covers ‘common cooking oils that contain more of the “better-for-you” fats and less saturated fat.’

• Canola
• Corn
• Olive
• Peanut
• Safflower
• Soybean
• Sunflower

‘Blends or combinations of these oils,’ they add, ‘are often sold under the name “vegetable oil,” and cooking sprays made from these oils are also good choices.’  Good choices? These seed oils masquerading as vegetable oils are called RBD oils in the trade – Refined, Bleached and Deodorised.

How did these experts end up with a shortlist of the most processed, most unstable, lowest quality oils on earth? With the exception of olive oil.

Because they only looked at one thing, and picked the oils with the least saturated fat / most polyunsaturated fat content. Forget about lack of processing and nutritional value, forget about the anti-inflammatory properties of our best cooking oils. That’s how facile these folks are, and they haven’t caught up with the last 30 years of research. And these people give Americans health advice? No wonder they’re such a sick lot.

Image Source: Penn State University

Oils and Heart Health

It’s incomprehensible that in 2020, with all the recent research upending the old wives tales about killer cholesterol and artery-clogging saturated fat, we find the American Heart Association clinging to that old story. Its most recent encyclical confirmed that the earth was flat and the sun rotated around it: it advised people to replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats, which include polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats,

It urged Americans to reduce their intake of fats that come from meats, poultry, cheese, dairy products and tropical oils, such as coconut and palm oils, to reduce their risk of heart disease. They were advised to raise the level of ‘healthy fats’ in their diets by replacing animal fats with vegetable fats, and added that polyunsaturated fats were better for the heart than monounsaturated fats. Out go olives and avocadoes …

If they could just get their heads out of the molecular morass of research and have a look at the real world, they’d come across some confronting evidence that their recommendations couldn’t be more wrong.

How Many Paradoxes will it Take?

About 3 decades ago, we heard about the ‘French Paradox.’ In a nutshell, the French use more butter than any other country on earth, eat their way through mountains of triple cream brie and pâté de foie gras, and love duck cooked in its own fat. They drink more and smoke more than we do as well, and they have the lowest rate of heart disease in Europe and the second-lowest rate in the world. The French also live 4 years longer than Americans.

Image Source: France Directory

The health experts in English-speaking countries called it a paradox because they can’t explain it. Open-minded scientists would’ve looked for other exceptions to their rules, to check if they should reexamine their assumptions, and they’d have found a number of them:

1. France – life expectancy 83, obesity 15%, deaths from heart disease rank 182
2. Switzerland – obesity 10%, life expectancy 84, deaths from heart disease rank 171
3. Spain – life expectancy 83, obesity 23%, deaths from heart disease rank 177
4. Belgium –life expectancy 82, obesity: 16%, deaths from heart disease rank 172
5. Italy – life expectancy 83; obesity 15%; deaths from heart disease rank 166

By comparison,

• USA – life expectancy 78, obesity 37%, heart disease rank 80
• Australia – life expectancy 83, obesity 30%, deaths from heart disease rank 175

please note: higher numbers mean lower levels of heart disease

Complete list from the WHO

The Take-Home Message

Like France, the other four countries on the list above enjoy a rich diet high in saturated fats. By contrast, Russia and its former satellites the Ukraine, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova and Georgia consume far less saturated fat than most European countries. Their life expectancy is around 72 years, obesity affects 20%, and their deaths from heart disease ranking is 23 – we’re talking about 225 deaths from Heart Disease in 100,000 citizens per annum, compared with 31 in France, or 51 in Italy.

Clearly these countries demonstrate that there’s more to heart disease than high cholesterol and saturated fat: smoking is still very popular and drinking vodka even more so. The main reason why rates of heart disease have been dropping in western countries is the number of people who stopped smoking.

Image Source: Dr Malcolm Kendrick

Additional Reading

Long Term skeptic of the cholesterol / fat story Malcolm Kendrick gives us a short take on a study of 36,000 people over twelve years, conducted in the Netherlands. The main conclusions were that that: ‘Total saturated fat intake was associated with a lower IHD (Ischaemic Heart Disease) risk (HR per 5% of energy 0.83). Substituting SFAs with animal protein, cis-monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats or carbohydrates was significantly associated with higher IHD risks (HR 1.27 – 1.37).’1

In other words, eating less saturated fat increased the rates of heart disease. Says Dr Kendrick: ‘One thing scientific researchers have learned over the years is that you can never say anything in a straightforward way. I think the game is that, if anyone can easily understand your findings, you lose.’

A couple more studies:

Food consumption and the actual statistics of cardiovascular diseases: an epidemiological comparison of 42 European countries – Grasgrube, Sebera, Hrazdira, Hrebickova and Cacek https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5040825/

‘Our results do not support the association between CVDs and saturated fat, which is still contained in official dietary guidelines. Instead, they agree with data accumulated from recent studies that link CVD risk with the high glycaemic index/load of carbohydrate-based diets. In the absence of any scientific evidence connecting saturated fat with CVDs, these findings show that current dietary recommendations regarding CVDs should be seriously reconsidered.’

Saturated fat does not clog the arteries: coronary heart disease is a chronic inflammatory condition, the risk of which can be effectively reduced from healthy lifestyle interventions. (British Medical Journal)

Magic Numbers

‘If you’re going to cellar, you need to find a way to keep your wine below 17 degrees Celsius, but ideally between 12 and 15 degrees. If you go above this range, factor in that your wines will develop at a faster rate and are unlikely to cellar long-term.’

That’s the advice from Campbell Mattinson in James Halliday’s Wine Companion. The advice from other experts is a little more user-friendly but they all seem to agree that a constant temperature of around 15 degrees is ideal. I’ve never been able to create such perfect conditions, not even in a cellar I dug out under a south-facing house on Sydney’s northern beaches.

Temperatures there ranged from about 13 degrees in winter to 22 in summer, and the wines I stored there over many years remained in top condition except for their labels (due to the high humidity). In the next house I made do with above ground storage and installed an air-conditioner, which I only used in summer. Then came another house, this time with room underneath, but above ground. The wines did not suffer.

So far so good, but I was worried when I moved to a second-floor apartment with no air-conditioning in 2008. At least the place was in Mosman (Sydney), not in Bourke, and not far from the harbour. I kept most of my wine in sturdy 6-pack boxes with those scalloped soft cardboard dividers. You may need to foster a good relationship with your wine merchant to get enough of these. There are a couple of other options as shown in the ‘Rough Guide’ below.

The building was double-brick, which helped a lot, and I wouldn’t try this in a weatherboard cottage. I kept the boxes in cupboards and under a couple of spare beds in the room that got the least sunlight. I hung up a temperature gauge, and checked it often. When we had consecutive days in the mid to high thirties, the gauge went as high as 26 degrees. That gave me bad dreams.

I checked out other options such as wine cabinets and rented storage space, and rejected both for the reasons outlined below.  By now I had come to the conclusion that it is sudden changes in temperature that do the most damage to table wine, not absolute temperatures, so I decided to take the risk.

Crunch Time

After 10 years of the hottest summers on record, it’s clear that my strategy worked. Over those years I opened some of the treasures I’d kept for special occasions: Penfolds St Henri and Bin 389 from the eighties, Wendouree reds from the early 90s, Wynns black label Cabernets, Mountadam Chadonnays and Leo Buring Rieslings from the early noughties, and more.

They weren’t going off, that much was clear. They didn’t seem to be losing form either. The corks were not leaking, the ullages remained pretty much where they were to start with, and all the wines were in excellent shape except for a few corked bottles. The other advice from the experts is to avoid moving wines, and not to disturb them until you’re ready to open them.

Three years ago, we moved to Thirroul for family reasons and rented a brick veneer house. The wine ended up under the stairs and in the spare bathroom which was less than ideal. After 12 months we moved to a ground floor townhouse, where the only storage has been cupboards, albeit cupboards with thick wooden doors in a double-brick house that’s freezing in winter and cool in summer. A couple of years on, there’s still no sign of my wine collection losing form.

Photo taken July 2020 – ullages couldn’t really be much better, could they?

The Rough Guide

A few years ago, I wrote The Rough Guide to Cellaring Wine in a Hot Climate, where I shared my experience as a wine-loving apartment dweller. For that post, I’d crunched some numbers on various storage options. For a lock-up you manage yourself, the cost is $225 per month for a 75 – 90 case cubicle at The Wine Ark in Chatswood or Alexandria (Sydney). That’s $2700 a year, which would buy you more than 13 dozen $20 wines. And your wine most likely ends up a long way away.

Managed facilities, where the warehouse people look after your wine, catalogue it and accept deliveries from your wine merchant are much dearer again but the tyranny of distance remains.

Wine Cabinets are yet another option, and in some ways the least attractive because they combine high cost of storage with the high cost of electricity to maintain a constant temperature. Even opting for the largest cabinets to keep the price per bottle low will set you back about $12 – $15,000 for 600 bottles (in 4 tall cabinets, so space becomes a big issue as well). Here’s a 166 bottle Vintec cabinet for $3,000.

$12,000 will buy you another 600 bottles of $20 wines, so you can see that these cabinets aren’t a practical solution for those of us who are short of money and space. The smarter option would be to just buy one of these cabinets for your most precious bottles.

The Fine Art of Timing

I’ve been part of a group of serious wine buffs for decades, and we meet about once every 3 months and all bring a special bottle. Two actually because many of the bottles are 30 or 40 years old which means that most are past their best, and there are always a few corked wines among them.

A few years ago, I sent some of my Wendourie reds to auction because I had collected too many of them, and they had reached their peak. They fetched $100 a bottle on average, which was disappointing since you pay more for the current vintage. At least I avoided the trap of keeping wines too long, a trap many of my fellow wine lovers have fallen into.

Even a perfect air-conditioned cellar will not prevent wines succumbing to the ravages of old age, and to me there’s no worse experience than drinking a wine and thinking ‘what a shame we didn’t open this 10 years ago.’

My basic rules are simple:

• Keep for up to 40 years: Mighty reds in the Grange class
• Keep for up to 30 years: reds built to last, that is with enough substance, acid and tannin to see them though. Wendourie, Wynns Black Label Cabernets, Penfolds bin range, the better Henschkes, top-notch Bordeaux
• Keep for up to 20 years: Just about any quality red made down under, with a history of aging well. Quality Rieslings from Clare and Eden Valleys, and good Semillons form the Hunter and South Australia. Burgundies and reds from the Rhone Valley
• Keep for up to 10 years: Just about any decent Aussie red will mellow for five years and last for 10. So do good chardonnays, and most Rieslings and Semillons.

Different varieties tend to reach their top form at very different times, and here are the styles that are best enjoyed young:

• Most Rosés, white wines and sparkling wines except for quality Rieslings, Semillons and Chardonnays
• Most Aussie reds made from Pinot Noir and Grenache
• Most wines made from Mediterranean varieties, since most of these plantings are young and the wines made from them tend not to age well.

It’s good to know that good wines aren’t the delicate, fussy creatures the experts make them out to be, but please don’t go overboard – use common sense. If the storage for your wines is dubious, store your cellaring wines somewhere else and just keep your drinking wines in the house.

Additional Reading

When should I drink this wine?

How long to keep different varieties

I’m serious: we’re talking 95/96 point wines under $15. No, not Halliday Points, real points. We can’t name names or show labels, but we give you plenty of hints. And it’s so much fun guessing, right?

Secret Label Pyrenees Vintage Brut 2016 – $14 at Kemenys. I don’t like choosing mystery wines for Wine of The Week, but this wine is simply too good. I cannot recall tasting an Australian Sparkling wine of this quality for less than $20, and not many over $20. Comes from a winery that was once owned by the makers of a well-known Cognac.

The nose promised good bubbles when we opened it, and the wine got better with every sip. I ordered a case immediately – such quality at this price is ridiculous. The description at the link is accurate. Scored 95 points and a gold medal at the 2019 Wine Showcase Magazine awards. 95 points. Absolute knockout. Back up the truck.

SECRET LABEL ADELAIDE HILLS RESERVE CHARDONNAY 2016 – $22 at Kemenys. tt’s a cracker that reminds me of a white Burgundy, with fruity and savoury elements in a seamless blend. There are stone fruits, nuts and oatmeal, which work in seamless harmony. The highlight is the creamy texture, and the flavour is richer than its 13% suggest. Gorgeous chardy. 96 points. BUY.

Secret Label Adelaide Hills Shiraz  2017 – $17 at Kemenys. A gorgeous example of Adelaide Hills Shiraz, where the cooler-climate produces more elegant reds than McLaren Vale just down the road. Medium-bodied but full flavoured, it delivers ripe berry fruits touched up with pencil-shavings oak, plus pepper and spices and a touch of charcuterie. Smooth as silk. 94 points. BUY.

Secret Label Barossa Valley Mataro Grenache Shiraz 2018 – $17 at Kemenys. An MGS for a change. 65% Mataro or Mourvèdre as the trendy set prefers to call it –the variety should be among our top reds since it thrives in hot climates. The flavour here is bold, gamey and earthy, but there are also violets and minerals in the background, and hints of tar and leather. This is just a pup so give it lots of time to breathe, or decant it. The winemaker has a really common surname, and the label features a thumbprint. Terrific red at a bargain price. 95 points.

Hidden Label Reserve Barossa Shiraz 2018 – $18 at Kemenys. This one is HIDDEN, not Secret. Among the best 5 Shiraz reds I’ve tasted this year, this is a perfect example of the generous Barossa style without the excesses. Rich and full-bodied yet classy and elegant. I suspect this wine is made by Elderton, but that’s just a hunch.

The gorgeous fruit is dressed in super fine oak, there are subtle spices and notes of dark chocolate, and the texture is smooth and seamless. Perfect pitch, already drinking well but will last for years if you can keep your hands off it (which I doubt). 96 points, absolute steal.

Secret Label Clare Valley Shiraz 2018 – $12 at Kemenys. Opulent, almost decadent Shiraz from the Clare Valley, glorious fruit, utterly seductive, rich and ripe and smooth and glossy. It hides the 15% alcohol well, and it’s hard to put down so be careful. There is a dark side to the wine but only on the label This red will please any crowd. Pink Floyd would write a song about it. More fancied wineries would sell a wine like this for 3 times the price. The value is way off the scale. 96 points. Back up the ute!

Secret Label Central Otago Pinot Noir 2018 – $16 at Kemenys. You know how hard it is to find a decent Pinot under $20, so this is a surprise. The colour is strong, and the nose says Pinot Noir. Dark cherries make up the core, with meaty and earthy notes in the background. The wine glides along the palate and finishes with ripe tannins. One could wish for more complexity but not at this bargain price. 93 points, nudging 94. BUY.

It’s a world that’s far away from the humble wines we tend to focus on, but there are special occasions when we buy champagne. On those occasions it’s a great asset to have some knowledge, how and where to find the best value champagne for example. A good friend knows far more about this subject than I do, and this post sums up Jeffrey’s journey into champagne.

Before we get to that, we need to understand that champagne is a very special wine made in a special place, in a very special way. This is not easy given the volumes involved: 300 million bottles a year. That makes maintaining quality and prestige a constant challenge, which most makers have met. In fact champagne is most likely a much better product these days than it was in the fifties.

A World of Change

Back then, champagne was a heavy wine, full of sugar and usually drunk with dessert. The apéritif styles that offered purity, freshness and elegance came much later, when more Chardonnay was used, the (sugar) dosage was reduced and stainless steel replaced much of the barrel storage. Blanc de Blancs and Rosé champagnes followed, along with prestige cuvees such Krug’s Clos de Mesnil

Like other French wine making areas, Champagne has its Grand Crus, and Clos de Mesnil is one of those: a tiny walled plot of hallowed soil. These single site champagnes are the exception though, since champagne making is really about blending many different wines to the ‘house style’ most makers have refined over the years.

A bottle of Krug’s Clos de Mesnil Blanc de Blancs comes with a 4 digit price tag. At the other end of the scale, a bottle of Moet will set you back just $50. I suspect it’s a bestseller because people can pronounce its name with ease, but it’s consistently the worst big name champagne I’ve tasted. This is where a little knowledge makes a big difference, because you can get far better champagne for a few dollars more.

For the non-vintage wines, the vast majority of champagnes made, makers use base wines from different areas and different years. The next level up is vintage champagne, only made in top years as is the custom with Vintage Port. Beyond vintage wines, we get into special cuvées.

There are a dozen or more big houses in Champagne, many of them centuries old, and there are small makers and even co-ops. To find your way around these involves a long and winding road as well as deep pockets, so let’s turn to Jeffrey for some inside knowledge.

A 5-Year Project

Jeffrey is a serious wine man and a very generous friend, not just with wine but with his time as well. He knows his way around champagne better than anyone I know, so I asked him for his advice on the best houses and vintages, and eventually he came back with an email that provides a great mini guide to the region and its wines.

Jeffrey claims he really only ‘discovered’ champagne about 5 years ago. He adds that ‘I had been hiding under my ignorance, I suppose it’s reasonable to say, of limited knowledge beforehand through unadventurous drinking of a very narrow band of favourite champagne houses. And what I have belatedly discovered is just how huge and complex, how diverse and deep the whole of champagne really is.’ I’ll get out of your way now and let Jeffrey tell the story.

Modern champagne – powerhouse of production

Nothing and no other place in the world of bubbles comes near it for its overall quality or volume of production.  However, there are some individual makers around the world that warrant their time in the sun … Eg, Arras, in Australia.

I’m comfortable with what I may claim to be a good ‘working knowledge’ of the greater Bordeaux region,  of a more focused knowledge of the Côte d’Or, Chablis, the Rhone, and various regions of French ‘country’ wines …. without the notion to any expertise (of course) as befits an amateur at it all.  But as I have discovered, Champagne is the granddaddy of them all as far as the hugeness in scales of production, of obvious quality improvements over the past 25 years, and the vastness of area in production.

Champagne as a whole is a modern multi powerhouse of production – in many large ‘Houses’ even industrial size scales of production – all tend to operate at a level of quality that is beyond most amateur drinker’s comprehension.

My last 5 years have been a concerted effort to get to know champagne really well, in order to form the same level of ‘working knowledge’ as I have of the other [French] regions.  To do this I’ve invested heavily in looking at about 80 Houses, from bottom to top, and now I feel I have just the basics of knowledge – I’m still the amateur.

The Industrial Face of Champagne

There is an ocean of fairly ordinary ‘industrial’ quality champagne produced, and this is what most people think is good Champagne. These are some of the best-known:

• Moët white label Brut Impérial (up to 30 million bottles annually)
• Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label (X millions too)
• Perrier Jouët
• Laurent-Perrier (white label La Cuvée @ 5 million bottles)
• Mumm
• Nicolas Feuillatte
• Piper-Heidsieck
• Pommery
• Lanson

These are rather an ordinary level compared to what is capable of being produced through the tremendous leaps forward in the quality of champagne today. Each one of these Houses is capable of producing the finest examples of champagne at their upper echelon of enterprise –  think Moët Brut Imperial vs Dom Perignon (the 08 Dom P is pure heaven in a bottle), and these other Houses have, or try, for the equivalent.

In certain great years, these House’s vintage champagnes can be pretty good, e.g. Laurent-Perrier made a stylish vintage 08 which they left on extended Lees for 10 years as it was such a good vintage (it came out @$90-120), but normally their vintage is just marginally better than their White Label La Cuvée.

Simple Rules to Follow

Rule number 1 :  know the vintage –  the weather / vintage conditions really impact on quality here.

Rule number 2 : know the House –  House styles have their particular character, and thus have a personal appeal, and this can be a fairly dependable guide through their grades of quality – Think Pol Roger.

Rule number 3 : every House is ‘different’, different in House style, the winemaker’s philosophy,  the viticulture practices, the land holdings or grape sources / axccess, and financial constraints.

Rule number 4 : prestigious-end Cuvees – this is where all Houses show their winemaking signatures, and where the excitement is. Yes, these are always expensive.

The best Line & Length Houses

What are the Great* Champagne Houses where the line & length of winemaking is outstanding at every level. This is not on the basis of size, but purely on quality at every level, and on value for money.

• Billecart-Salmon
• Bollinger
• Charles Heidsieck
• Deutz (owned by Roederer)
• Dom Perignon is part of Moët, but recently separated as a producer brand – and should be listed here.
• Jacquesson
• Krug
• Philipponnat
• Louis Roederer
• Pol Roger
• Ruinart
• Taittinger (a large production, family-owned House, but white label style can reflect the vintage).

Recommended champagne @$70 level

My choice of best value-for-money, entry-level quality

*star rating

**Billecart-Salmom Brut Reserve

**Pol Roger white label

***Louis Roederer Brut Premier – real craftsmanship here, and currently terrific.

*Bollinger

*Taittinger

All these bottlings (with the exception of Billecart) are capable of and vastly improve with 3-5 years

further ageing.

Recommended Champagne @$120 – $150

***Billecart-Salmon Blanc de Blanc NV

*Charles Heidsieck NV

***Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Blanc NV

**Pol Roger vintage

**Louis Roederer vintage

*Dom Ruinart Blanc de Blanc NV

*Gosset NV

**Taittinger Prelude Grand Cru NV

*Taittinger vintage

Exceptional quality Growers/Owners (and possibly Negotiants)

These are smaller estate Champagne Houses that I have found consistent over time ….

**Agrapart

**Andre Clouet

**De Sousa

***Egly-Ouriet

**Jacquesson

**Jerome Prevost

*Paul Barra

***Philipponnat (although now owned by a large House)

**Pierre Gimonnet

***Pierre Peters

*Ulysee Colin

**Henri Giraud

My favourite vintage, and Tete de Cuvees…

Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Nicolas Francois

Billecart-Salmon vintage Blanc de Blanc

Billecart-Salmon Cuvee Elisabeth Salmon Rosé

Bollinger Grand Année

Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Millénaires

Charles Heidsieck Millésime

Charles Heidsieck Millesime Rosé

Dom Perignon vintage

Dom Perignon Rosé

Krug MV

Krug vintage

Krug MV Rosé

Krug BdB Clos de Mesnil

Laurent-Perrier Grand Siècle NV

Laurent-Perrier vintage Cuvee Alexander Rosé

Louis Roederer vintage Blanc de Blanc

Louis Roederer vintage Rosé

Louis Roederer Cristal

Louis Roederer Cristal Rosé

Philipponnat Clos de Goisses

Pol Roger vintage Blanc de Blanc

Pol Roger vintage Rosé

Pol Roger vintage

Pol Roger vintage Cuvee Winston Churchill

Dom Ruinart vintage Bland de Blanc

Dom Ruinart vintage Rosé

Taittinger Comte de Champagne BdB vintage

Taittinger Comte d Champagne Rosé

————————————————–

Additional Resources

The Champagne Guide 2020-2021 by Tyson Stelzer – Jeffrey says: ‘I recommend this issues without equivocation as it’s a great source of information on both Champagne as a whole, and on individual Houses. You may find reason to critique him in ways not unjustified, as his narrative is a form of prose so well composed I feel, a reader may wonder if its wine he’s reviewing or is he more intent in writing a rich poetic masterpiece for the sake of writing – which is no mean criticism.’

I know exactly what Jeffrey means. I ran into Tyson Stelzer’s wine poetry a few years ago, in piece he wrote about Penfolds Bin and Icon Release 2013, where I accused him of sounding like Penfolds’ PR machine.

Here’s a sample chapter https://www.tysonstelzer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Champagne-in-the-World-Sample-chapter.pdf

Kim’s Cheat Sheet for champagne jargon https://www.bestwinesunder20.com.au/cheat-sheet-champagne-jargon/

An Easy Guide For Tasting Champagne https://new.glassofbubbly.com/an-easy-guide-for-tasting-champagne/

How champagne is made https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtIIjm4lSQ