Head Wines

Alex Head is an exciting new talent in the Barossa. A bit like Spinifex, he likes to fashion vibrant and refreshing wines, with fruit intensity a minor consideration. This works well in years with a lot of sunshine, but in rainy and cool years, the wines can be a bit thin. As a result, this showing of seven current Rhone varieties was a bit disappointing.

2012 Head Red GSM: intense raspberry fruit, fairly forward but good length, opens up on  finish (90 points).

2012 Head Red Shiraz: plum and red kirsch flavours, grapes picked very early, strong acidity (88 points).

2011 Head Contrarian: slowly fermented, quite savoury, but not enough mouthfeel (89 points).

2011 Head Old Vines Grenache: a thin and quite earthy wine (86 points).

2012 Head Old Vines Grenache: light style, fresh and elegant with some backbone (92 points).

2011 Head Blonde: From a vineyard in Stonewell, this has good fruit and broadens out nicely. However, does the wine have the structure to age? I doubt it (88 points).

2011 Head Brunette: From the Moppa vineyard, this wine is quite fresh and forward, plum on the palate, and fine tannins on the finish (90 points).

Personally, I am looking forward to the 2012 Blonde and Brunette, which will come out in September.

Invivo Sauvignon Blanc

Remember the ABC (anything but Chardonnay) movement? Pretty dead these days. In my view, it does not pay to be dogmatic when it comes to wine. Sauvignon Blanc does not have a great image among 'serious wine drinkers', and I admit it is not my favourite grape variety: one dimensional, in your face, boring etc. But to completely ignore it is at your own peril.

 Invivo is a relatively new organic winery from Marlborough. Its 2012 Invivo Sauvignon Blanc is a beautiful wine. It displays the expected gooseberry and citrus flavours on the palate, but the wine is not harsh, rather gentle, with a rich mouthfeel, yet fresh. It has a smooth and lifted finish. Altogether, this is an attractive package which goes particularly well with sushi.

Score: 90/++

Pepperilly Wines

There are still many new wineries trying to make it in Australia and quite a few deserve a chance. From Western Australia comes Pepperilly, no it is not from Margaret River nor the Great Southern. Pepperilly is based in the Ferguson Valley, overlooking Bunbury i.e. north of Margaret River.

I recently tasted two of their wines. the 2010 Pepperilly Purple Patch is a GSM, with a very dominant Grenache component, maybe a bit too much. The flavours are very clean, with raspberry dominating. The Shiraz provides some darker flavours on the back palate. The wine has fine tannins on the finish. Overall, this is a well made wine; it is pretty, quite feminine. The high 14.5% alcohol is not noticable, which points to sufficiently intense fruit.

Score: 91/+

The 2011 Pepperilly Rose looks quite French, with its pale pink colour. It is based on Cabernet and Shiraz. Again, the flavours are very clean and crisp. I find the wine a little sweet and to me it is - all the prejudices coming out here - a ladies wine.

Score: 89/0

How much value is in the label? Well, these wines look very stylish and at less than $20 per bottle, they represent excellent value.

Three Barossa Icons, More Than 10 Years On

I drank three Barossa Icon wines over the last few days. There is always doubt to what extent these Shiraz based, and often high alcohol wines can go the distance. Well, the answer is clear: the well-made ones can.

The 2002 Wolf Blass Black Label is a blend of predominantly Barossa Shiraz and Barossa and Langhorne Creek Cabernet Sauvignon. Blueberry, blackberry and plum flavours are still strong and dominating a well balanced structure. Oak is still quite noticable. The tannins have softened and are quite silky now, and the long finish is fruity, but not sweet. The wine has medium to full bodied weight, quite pleasant, and it is a good time to drink this wine now, although it will last well for a few more years. This is an excellent example of the under-appreciated workings of a Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon blend.

Score: 94/++

The 2001 Henschke Mt. Edelstone has an incredibly strong and lifted bouquet of mulberry flavours. This continues onto the complex palate, where smoky and ham flavours are also present. The wine is quite peppery and elegant (more so than the other two). There is a lightness in this wine, yet it is strong at the same time, with silky tannins and a long finish This is a brilliant example of mature Australian Shiraz. Again, now is a good time to drink this wine.

Score: 96/+++

The 2002 Torbreck RunRig was massive on release, and the richness, boldness, and depth of blackberry fruit is still there. The tannins are firm, and the structure of the wine is holding up well. Unfortunately, there is a taste of a bit of burnt fruit on the finish, and the wine tastes slightly hot. The wine might  mellow over the next three years and therefore improve its profile.

Score: 94/+    

Heathcote Shiraz

Well, I am back now, with a couple of interesting reviews coming up in the next few days. This blogpost is about a tasting of most of the current Heathcote Shiraz releases which were reviewed by the Gourmet Wine Traveller Magazine. I have not had any exposure to Heathcote Shiraz in the last couple of years. Therefore it was timely to get an overview. Heathcote has a special soil, the dark red Cambrian soil. And the Shiraz is very different from its South Australian counterparts. This wine tastes predominantly of red fruit, an intense kirsch flavour.

I tasted 17 wines and in my assessment, they fall into two groups. But before I get to this, I want to highlight two producers: The 2012 Windy Peak Shiraz is $14 per bottle. This is quite a vibrant and juicy wine and great value at this price (89 points). The other, better known producer is Tar & Roses, who  produce a very serious Shiraz at $20 per bottle. Their 2010 Shiraz had excellent depth in their fruit and a finely balanced structure (91 points).

Now, the first group disappointed me, as these wines all lacked elegance. I gave these wines 88 to 91 points, they were 2010 Shadowfax One Eye, 2010 Wanted Man White Label,  2011Sanguine Estate Progeny, 2010 Ellis Wines, 2012 Windy Peak, 2010 Heathcote Estate Single Vineyard, 2010 Tar & Roses, 2009 Heathcote Winery Curagee, 2010 Bress Gold Chook, 2010 PHI Single Vineyard Syrah Grenache. The Heathcote Estate Shiraz was the best in this group.

The wines in the second group were enjoyable to drink. The 2008 Vinea Marson Syrah is an unusual wine in this group (and I have experienced this previously as well). This wine is lighter bodied, with floral flavours and very fine tannins. It would be a Burgundy drinker's favourite (93 points). The 2010 Tellurian Tranter Shiraz was more typical for the region: intense fruit characters, but not juicy, and a harmonious package (92 points). The two Sanguine wines in this bracket were jockeying for wine of the night. The 2010 Sanguine Estate Shiraz was very vibrant, and had quite a strong tannin structure, which I enjoyed more on my second tasting (93 points). The 2008 Sanguine D'Orsa Reserve Shiraz, their flagship wine, was immediately appealing. It was smooth and elegant with a long finish, but a little sweet for my taste. The 15% alcohol level would make it difficult to drink more than a glass (93 points). And finally there was the 2010 Mitchelton Shiraz, which topped the Gourmet Wine Traveller tasting. It had a good balance between sweet and savoury flavours - a harmonious wine with fine tannins, but to me it did not have enough mouthfeel and had a somewhat short finish (92 points).

Overall, I was a little disappointed. There were some strong producers missing from this tasting (Jasper Hill, Wild Duck Creek, Seppelt Mt. Ida), but if this is the best the region can offer, it cannot compare with the icons of McLaren Vale or the Barossa.       

 

Penfolds Grange (no review)

I am still travelling in Europe, drinking cheap and mediocre wine. I will therefore miss the release time for the ultra-premium Penfolds wines this year. I am interested to hear from unbiased tasters,other than the major wine reviewers, what you thought of these wines, in particular the 2008 Grange, of course.

I will be back with regular reviews next week. Thank you for your patience.

French value wines

I have been travelling in Europe during the last few weeks and have spent little time on wine. Hence no blogging. However, I tasted a number of cheaper (under 20 euros per bottle) red wines. This seemed attractive, as the 2009 and 2010 vintages are so highly regarded, in particular in Bordeaux and the Rhone.

Overall, the results have been disappointing. While there was more intensity of fruit than in lesser years, I found that the flavours were often a little simple and the structure unbalanced. A better example, but still along these lines, is the 2009 Chateau Meyney (86 points). Generally, wines from the Rhone faired a little better. This is because the varieties grown there, in particular Shiraz and Grenache, are more forgiving to less than perfect viticulture or winemaking than Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The best wine I drank in this category is also one of the highest volume wines. It was a 2010 Guigal Cote du Rhone. This wine impressed with the purity of its fruit and a generous, but balanced mouthfeel (92 points). It speaks of the superb winemaking skills of the house of Guigal to produce such a good wine from fruit from many different suppliers which it cannot fully control.

So the moral of the story is that the often quoted strategy of buying lesser wines in good years may not generate the hoped for results, and in fact may deprive you of the experience that can be had from the outstanding wines of these vintages, even though pricing may make this a rarer event than one would like.

Chateau Rauzan-Segla

To me, Margaux is Bordeaux's most intriguing sub-region. The floral character of many of its wines is so different from those of most Cabernet Sauvignons. Towering over others is of course Chateau Margaux, not always justified, I think. It is outside most peoples purse strings anyway.

Looking at others from the area, Rauzan-Segla is interesting. It is owned by the same owners as Chanel. A lot of investment has gone into the winery.

This time, I tried the 2004 Rauzan-Segla, from an average vintage. The wine has raspberry and cherry  sents on the nose. This follows attractively onto the front palate: an elegant and charming wine. But then it happens: the famous Cabernet Sauvignon hole on the mid-palate. All-up, the fruit does not carry the structure of the wine. The reasons for liking a Margaux wine are there, but unfortunately, this Rauzan-Segla does not fully deliver.

Score: 91/0

Seppelt Aeriu's Heathcote GSM

There used to be a time when I drank quite a lot of Heathcote wines, but somehow they have gone off my radar. Partly, because some of them are too alcoholic, partly, because attempts to 'tone them down' have not been so interesting.

So I was curious what the 2009 Seppelt Aeriu's Heathcote GSM would be like. The wine has a plummy bouquet. On the palate, raspberry flavours dominate initially, but very quickly this is followed by a sweet core, tasting like lollypop. Clearly the Grenache component dominates, and it is too sweet. The wine is not very tannic and finishes smooth and relatively simple.

Score: 86/--

Penfolds New 2010 Releases

Penfolds releases their prestigious wines in two batches. The premium releases in early March, the super premiums on 1 May. Penfolds winemaker Peter Gago went uncharacteristically gaga over the 2010 wines and  wine writers followed over the last few days. Phillip White disagreed and found too much oak in the wines. I tried three of the wines yesterday.

The 2010 wines are characterized by a very appealing purity of fruit. The fruit is intense, yet not overpowering, and generally in harmony with the structure of the wines. I found the oak to be much less prominent than in previous years, partly because of the intensity of the fruit. The wines are even elegant on release. In this sense there is less traditional Penfolds DNA in these wines, rather an evolution to better early drinkability without compromising the ageability of the wines.

The 2010 Bin 28 Kalimna Shiraz, drawn predominantly from Barossa fruit, shows intense blackberry and plum fruit. The tannins are firm and the finish dry, but there enough fruit flavour to balance this out. This is a robust wine and clearly the value for money pick (93 points).

The 2010 Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz delivers beautifully elegant fruit on the palate. The wine is very rounded, yet complex, with mocca flavours supporting the primary dark plum and blackberry fruit. The wine moves seamlessly down the palate, before it finishes with fine tannins. Balance, balance is the word (95/++ points).

The 2010 Bin 407 Cabernet Sauvignon has quite a floral bouquet. The wine is incredibly smooth, yet intense and clean. It has a beautiful long finish based on fine tannins. This wine was the real surprise to me in this line-up. The quality is a major step-up from previous years. There is no green or overripe fruit in this wine. It is very drinkable now, but will develop for a decade and last for at least another (95/+++ points).

Momofuku Wine Pairing

As most of my readers would not have had the chance to eat at Momofuku in Sydney or New York, I feel it might be of interest to report on my recent wine pairing experience there.

Like many, in particular up-market, restaurants do, Momofuku indulges in presenting obscure wines, where the customer has no reference points. I find this often a disappointing experience, but at Momofuku something else happened. Following are the wines
  - Keller 'von der Fels' Riesling 2011 (Rheinhessen, Germany)
  - Philippe Bornard 'le blanc de la rouge' Chardonnay 2008 (Jura, eastern France)
  - Ngeringa 'growers selection' Pinot Noir 2010 (Adelaide Hills)
  - Matej Skerlj Vitovska 2009 (Friuli, Italy)
  - Eric Bordelet poire 'granit' 2011 (Normandy, France)

The Riesling and the Pinot Noir were pretty much what you would expect. The other three wines, on their own, were very ordinary. The Bornard Chardonnay showed very little fruit. Minerality dominated. The Vitovska, a relatively rare grape mainly grown in Slovenia, equally had not much fruit flavours on the palate. The wine was tight and quite nutty. The Eric Bordelet is a pear cider with relatively high sugar content and firm tannins.

Yet with the food matches, these wines suddenly were shining. I have never experienced such a difference. The Bornard was paired with a trumpeter. The Vitovska was paired with congee and marron, and the cider with curd. In all cases the wines supported the food. They were all quite low alcohol. The lesson is, many wines fight with food for dominance. These wines could not dominate anything, but they added real flavour complexity in the background. What looked like a wine pairing to score points for being exotic, was actually brilliant.

Yalumba The Menzies Cabernet Sauvignon

Supposedly, this wine brand has improved significantly over the recent years. I cannot really comment as the 2006 Yalumba The Menzies is the first wine of this label I have ever drunk. I bought it years ago, as it appealed to me then, and it has a number of positive aspects now.

The fruit flavours are very typical of the variety as well as the Coonawarra region. The wine has a strong redcurrant flavour, but there is quite a lot of complexity on the palate as well, as savoury tones start to appear. The oak is well integrated. The tannins are firm and lead to a dry finish. On the other side of the equation, this wine lacks elegance and is a little rough around the edges. This will smooth out further in the next 2-3 years, but elegance will never be a feature of the wine. If you like the terra rossa fruit flavours, this wine is for you.

Score: 90/+