There’s some Christmas Cheer here, for sure.
How do we choose the wines we review?
That’s a simple question for most wine writers: they review the samples wineries or distributors send them. That’s why you see so many reviews of wines you’ve never heard of and can’t get hold of easily. I choose wines because:
- They’ve had positive reviews from Halliday, Hooke, Stock, Stelzer et al
- They’ve appeared on best or top lists such as Halliday’s Top 100 in 2012
- They’ve won significant trophies
- They’ve been recommended by friends who know their wines
- They’re being promoted /discounted by major outlets
- I was impressed with the previous vintage
The only other criterion is that the wines I write about are readily available and cost less than $25. Except for the Christmas selection I’ve just posted.
OK, let’s get down to the wines of the last 2 weeks. As always, the reviews are my views and often differ from those of other reviewers. Where the difference is marked, I add other views to provide a broader perspective. As always I buy the wines I review in the same shops you do. I don’t review samples as a rule, which may explain the different results.
A short recap of my rating system
10 (98-99) a truly memorable wine, a likely classic
9 (96-97) an outstanding wine, a great example of its style and origin
8 (94-95) a fine wine that reflects its variety, style and origin
7 (92-93) a good, enjoyable wine of authentic character
6 (90-91) a well-made wine, a good ‘drinking’ wine
5 (88-89) a wine that’s easy on the gums and has no serious faults
4 (86-87) a wine best used in the kitchen or in marinades for the BBQ
3 (85 and less) a wine you should avoid
BUY
Pewsey Vale Eden Vally Riesling 2007, $15 at Dan Murphys (Cellar Release)
It can be gratifying when you take your own advice and it turns out to be spot on. I’ve been raving about the 2006 Pewsey Vale Riesling all year, what a great wine it was and what a bargain at $19. We opened a bottle this week, and the wine has entered that lovely soft, mouth-filling phase that makes this a terrific food wine. Nuances of buttered toast, honey and kerosine keep you coming back to the glass in disbelief. What a bargain it was.
The current cellar release is the 2007, which is not quite in the same class but still lovely old Riesling at a ridiculous price ($15 for 6). Grab some while you can. Score: 8.5
Kooyong Clonale Chardonnay 2012, was $22 at Dan M’s on the day
Stunning Chardonnay, quite forward like many 2012s. Hints of white peach and cashews on the nose, and the palate adds notes of apricots after a couple of days in the open bottle. Suggestion of fine oak, terrific balance, just a lovely mouthful, elegant yet satisfying and lingering.Score: 9
Mad Fish Gold Turtle Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2012, $14 at Dan M’s
A newish label for Howard Park’s Mad Fish range, just a notch above the plain old Mad Fish. This is fairly typical Margaret River SSB with hints of cut grass and gooseberries, already enjoyable, well made and well balanced. Good value, if not quite in the same class as the Cabernet Merlot under the same label. Score: 7.5
Mount Pleasant Florence Sauvignon Blanc 2012, $13 at Dan M’s
McWilliams is naming selected wines after family members much as Yalumba used to do with its signature series. Unlike Yalumba, McWilliams has released Jack (a Coonawarra Cabernet) and Florence (an Adelaide Hills SB) at the bargain end of the market. Who knows why, and who knows why they use the Mount Pleasant label for wines made nowhere near Mt Pleasant. Another wine company that’s grown too large and lost the plot?
This wine is nothing like my idea of Sauvignon Blanc but it’s a very appealing drink, jam-packed with tropical fruit/ripe pear flavour supported by enough crunchy acidity to hold it together. It’s more like a ripe Pinot Gris, so I’d have it with pork rather than seafood. Score: 7.5
St Hallett Gamekeepers Barossa Shiraz 2010, $11 at Winestar
Bert Werden at Winestar tells us that this wine scored 96 Points at the Melbourne Show 2012 and won a Gold Medal in the Jimmy Watson Class. I don’t think it’s that good but it’s a bargain for the money, typical sweet, warm, spicy Barossa Shiraz, well balanced, soft and ready to drink, and only(!?) 14%. By far the best of the red Gamekeepers from 2010. Score: 7.5
Richard Hamilton McLaren Vale Shiraz 2010, $17 at Dan M’s
This red won both trophies at the Visy Great Aussie Shiraz Challenge, the under $20 one and the over $20 one. Unprecedented, they tell us. I can see the appeal of this wine in a show situation because its charms are all out front: big, soft fruit, sweet and lots of it. The more you let it breathe, the more fruit you get, and that earthy McLaren Vale taste fades. A lovely mouthful, if a bit short for my liking. Good value for money, but don’t expect to hear angels sing. Score: 8
2010 Gibson Reserve Shiraz, $38 at Nick’s Vintage Direct
This wine is well over $25, but it’s almost Christmas time so please give me a little latitude here. Friends shared it with me, and I thought it was a pretty classy red. The ripe fruit had tremendous concentration with no hint of jamminess; this is not another fruit bomb. Lots of complexity and flavours ranging from ripe plum and liquorice to classy vanillan and cedar oak. Great length and balance.
It turns out that Rob Gibson was a chief winemaker at Penfolds, where one of his tasks was identifying the best sources of Shiraz grapes for making Grange. Gibson ended up with a lot of useful knowledge, and set up his own business in 1997. While 2010 was generally a great year, Gibson’s sources in the northern Barossa suffered frost damage in the spring, which resulted in very low yields with just 650 cases made. The wine spent over 2 years mostly French oak. 14.5%. Score: 8.5
Hillcrest Premium Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2010, $55 at MyCellars
I wouldn’t have picked this as a Pinot Noir; it certainly shows precious little resemblance to red Burgundies. This is the bronzed Aussie interpretation, a muscle-bound specimen with tons of colour and enormous depth of flavour. With so much ripe cherry and plum fruit supported by vanillan oak, this is a Pinot to go with steak instead of duck. It’s an impressive red even if it’s off the style map. Surprising that it’s only 13.1%. Halliday gives this wine 97 points, Winefront 94. I’m with Winefront on this one. Score: 8+
DE BORTOLI Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2010, $28 at Winefront
When I look at the reviews for this wine, I get a sense of the emperor’s clothes – everybody raves about it but I don’t quite see it. De Bortoli’s is a success story, and it seems success is de rigeur. Matt Skinner reckons this wine is ‘every bit as good as the PHI,’ which is crap. Halliday, Stelzer and Winefront are out there on 94/95 points. WiningPom says ‘This Pinot is always a textbook example of what Steve Webber and Sarah Fagan can achieve with their collective Pinot scorcery and in 2010 it’s a tantalising feast for Pinotphiles.’
To me, it’s a bit on the dry side with the leafy herbaceous bits overdone. It’s on the light side too, and a bit mean and lean on the palate – it’s a knife edge with these Pinots, and I could well be wrong and it may all fall into place some day. Against such overwhelming forces, I’ll give it the benefit of the doubt but give me the PHI any day. Score: 7+
NOT CONVINCED
Oakridge Over The Shoulder Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2012, $17 at Dan M’s
An affordable wine made by a winery with a huge reputation. Is this the label that David Bicknell at Oakridge makes for Woolworths? Can’t remember. This is a delicate Chardonnay in the winery’s typical style, but it’s missing flavour, depth and intensity. Even over 3 days in the open bottle, the wine refused to deliver anything of substance. 12.5%. Score: 5.5
Moss Wood Ribbon Vale Semillon Sauvignon Blanc 2011, $24 at 1st Choice
This was disappointing given the expectations raised by the mighty Moss Wood name and the price. It’s an elegant style, well enough made with good length and flinty acid but lacking flavour and depth. At almost 2 years of age, I don’t expect the wine to fill out much. The Fraser Gallop 2011 SSB has a lot more going for it, and even the Mad Fish Bay above is better drinking in my view despite a price tag that’s $10 lower. JH gives this 95 points, I cannot imagine why. Score: 6
Rosemount Estate Chardonnay 2011, $11 at 1st Choice
I picked up a bottle of this because I wrote a post for my marketing blog about how Southcorp and Fosters trashed the Rosemount brand in the naughties. $1.5 billion dollars is the princely sum Southcorp Wines paid Bob Oatley of Wild Oats fame for Rosemount back in 2001. Just last year, its new owners Treasury Wine Estates (just demerged from Fosters) went through a major brand repositioning exercise. Full story here: http://blog.technoledge.com.au/2012/12/12/how-southcorp-and-fosters-trashed-the-rosemount-brand/
The good news is that they got rid of that stupid bottle with the diamond-shaped bottom. The bad news is that they almost made the iconic diamond-shaped label invisible – it’s just a shade of orange darker than the background. The other bad news is that I’m wondering whether the wine belongs into the AVOID group, but the modest price makes me think I should err on the generous side.
The label says The bright fresh flavours of Diamond Label are the perfect expression of Rosemount Estate, and the flavours are pretty fresh I have to concede. So fresh they remind me of fruit juice: pineapple and apricot. Best served well chilled on hot days.Score: 5
Yalumba Y series Viognier 2012, $10 lots of places
I keep reading what remarkable value these wines represent, and I keep hoping that I get lucky. This has a more flavour than the usual bland fare under this label, but it’s a bit on the coarse and crude side. Even considering the modest price, there are better wines to be had for $10. Score: 5
DE BORTOLI Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2008, was $28 at Winestar but all gone now
Just a footnote really: This wine would’ve been much better 2 years ago, it’s dried out since then. This may give us a hint that the 2010 might go the same way, which brings up the horror scenario of the man in the desert who is starving as a snake slithers past him – how does he know which part of the snake he should take a bite out of?
DE BORTOLI Shiraz Viognier 2008, $27 at Winestar plus free magnum worth $120 http://www.winestar.com.au/prod2797.htm
Call me suspicious but, with the rave reviews listed on the link page, and the modest price of $27, why do you need to throw in what amounts to a 35% discount? You guessed it: I didn’t like it. The wine has that ‘we’ve given this the treatment’ feel to it, vibrant and slick and nervously juicy from the Viognier which never works for me. Adding a small % of Viognier is what they do in the Rhone Valley, but it doesn’t produce Rhone-style wines in Australia. Instead, it produces wines that appear highly manipulated. 13.5%. This gets 96 It gets 7 from me.
Seppelt Chalambar Shiraz 2009, $18 at Kemenys
The fruit for this wine is sourced from Bendigo and the Grampians (what we used to call Great Western). The last bottle I had of this wine about 9 months ago was better; maybe it’s going through an awkward stage. There are cool climate Shiraz notes with more pepper and cloves than fruit, and the alcohol is moderate at 13.5%. There was some furry heat on the finish which cleaned up a bit over a couple of days but left lingering doubts. This should be a super bargain, with JH giving it 96 points, but I couldn’t get excited about it this time. Campbell Mattinson at Winefront gives it a much more cautious 91+, which is close to my mark. These wines do tend to age well.Score: 7
Forrester Estate Cabernet Merlot 2010, $16 at Dan M’s
I loved the 2009 for its elegance and finesse and seamless integration, but the 2010 is nothing like it. It lacks the integration, the depth of elegant flavour and the charm of its predecessor. It’s like a poor carbon copy that has faded a bit, and it confirms yet again that 2009 was a better vintage over west than 2010. 13.5% Score: 5
Ringbolt Cabernet Sauvignon 2011, $20 at Dan M’s
Western Australia’s treacherous southwest coastline is littered with shipwrecks, and this vineyard is named after one of them – the Ringbolt. It sank in the late 1800s in what is now known as Ringbolt Bay, not far from Cape Leeuwin. I like the story a lot more than the wines from this estate – I didn’t care for the 2010, and I can’t get excited about the 2011. It has plenty of flavour and ripe fruit and depth and length but there are green tinges and inky streaks that worry me. Over several days in the open bottle, these problems didn’t fade but announced themselves more forcefully. Shame.
14%. Score: 5
AVOID
Houghton Margaret River Chardonnay 2011, $14 at 1st Choice
This wine wasn’t recognisable as Chardonnay, and we could find no redeeming features in it. It lacks definition, focus, flavour and all-round appeal. Yes, it’s made from Margaret River fruit, and yes people keep telling me that Houghton make some terrific wines but this isn’t one of them. Eevn the ever generous JH only gives it 89 points. 13.5%
Mount Riley Sauvignon Blanc 2012, $14 at Dan Murphys
I bought this wine to get a feel for the 2012 vintage in New Zealand, in preference to the high volume Oyster Bay and Villa Maria labels. It said it was a family winery on the back label, so I wanted to like it. Sadly, the main flavours suggest boiled asparagus and capsicum, not gooseberry and lantana. There’s also a flat patch on the mid palate where we expect to find depth of flavour; it doesn’t hang together well and I fear it never will.
Shingleback The Davey Estate Shiraz 2010
Another big McLaren Vale Shiraz, and let me confess once more that I’m not a big fan of big McLaren Vale reds. I’m also finding ripe, alcoholic Shiraz from South Australia a bit tiresome on the whole. This one gave me mixed messages: dark, ripe almost jammy fruits and spices seemed to fight with inky notes and a hot, dry finish. Finished short and hard, really. 14.5%
I didn’t know this winery, but Halliday gives it 5 stars and says it won the 2006 Jimmy Watson trophy for its 2005 Cabernet. That suggests these wines have a lot of work done on them, and perhaps that work didn’t come off in the 2010 Shiraz.
Kim