Sunday drinking reports 26/8/12

[Sean]

deleted

[Chuck]

Haselgrove 1996 H Reserve McLaren Vale Shiraz (Double magnum). Having bought this monster many years ago it has been difficult finding an appropriate occasion to open it. Last night there was 4 of us which wasn't the ideal time but with it's age it had to be done. Extracting the oversized cork was a task in itself. Fairly saturated half came out and the remainder pushed back into the bottle.

Opened for 4 hours the wine was superb with sweet ripe fruit married with well intergrate (if a bit excessive) US oak and that regional chocolate. Everything was integrated with soft mellowed tannin. All in all a pleasing wine and yes we finished the lot bar about 1/3 conventional bottle that I imagine will hold a huge crust.

Carl

[griff]

I should be working so I think I'll procrastinate by posting

2007 Etienne Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ-Canet
Pours an off white gold. Has opened up slightly thankfully. I don't want to age it much further for the obvious reason. A myriad of flavours that change as one takes another sip. The image that spings to mind is sitting on a new bench overlooking the coast eating some roasted and salted macadamias. Lingering diacetyl on the finish and a lovely match for a fresh wild salmon from Wales served with a sorrel sauce. Excellent to Outstanding.

2008 Domaine William Fèvre Chablis 1er Cru Vaillons
White gold. Well I have finished the snack and have plunged into the ocean itself. Salty and saline with those classic flavours of smoke and oysters. On the weighty end for a chablis, still racy yet has texture. Fevre hit a home run pretty much across the board with the 2008's. This was superb value at about $25. Excellent. Bottled under Diam.

cheers

Carl

[griff]

One more.

2009 Cape Mentelle Shiraz
Magenta. Red berries and meat on the nose. Wild cherry ice cream on the palate. Short finish still - no doubt due to its youth. Classic young Margaret River shiraz. Very good indeed.

cheers

Carl

[Mahmoud Ali]

A real mixed bag on Sunday evening, a family dinner of marinated BBQ lamb ribs, baked potaoes and salad.

First off, a 2009 Wynn's Cab/Shiraz/Merlot, this was of course young, still purple at the rim and primary. dark fruit, mulberry, a touch of mint, and a whiff of oak. The palate was dry, leathery, and backward, the tannins requiring food. A nice drop, liked by most.

2003 Montana Reserve Pinot Noir, Barrique Matured, Marlborough, 13%. This had a brick red centre with a browning rim that clearly showed age. The nose had a ripe, smokey, tomato pungency, and a palate that would best be described as light to medium bodied but somewhat abrupt. Just a hint of strawberry fruit followed by a dry leathery palate, oak and fairly refreshing astringency. It's not a wine of any substance but is a nice departure from the usual heavy wines. I have to admit to a weakness for any wine that shows development and a tertiary character. Though I would not rate this highly I quite liked it for it's own individuality.

1997 Pirramimma Cabernet Sauvignon, Mclaren Vale. This is a wine that was apparently not well cellared, kept next to fridge over a numer of years and subject to temperature variations. The colour was still dark and inpenetrable, going right to the rim, but at the rim was a clear browning that marked this as an aged wine. The nose wasn't generous, inky, minerally, showing some high-toned, black cherry notes, and hinting at oxidation. The palate had a sweet attack, a strong minerality coupled with an oxidative, sherried character with a grippy and astringent finish. It was much improved with the fatty lamb ribs.

2008 d'Arenberg's 'Dead Arm' Shiraz, McLaren Vale. This was opened almost immediately after the Montana (too light) and the Pirramimma (not enough fruit and pleasure) failed to inspire. It went down quickly and there wasn't anything left with which to taste and write notes. Suffice it to say that the Dead Arm was young and dense. There was a black-fruited attack followed by a density of flavour and a dry, tannic finish. Everyone liked it, either by reputation ofr flavour. I would really like to taste this wine with a few years of age.

Mahmoud.

[porschemad911]

2010 Mt. Majura Graciano
A gift from my wife ... and it was absolutely delicious! Beautifully balanced scent of red berries, pepper, dried herbs and spices. Deep but brightly glowing ruby colour. Glides across the tongue very smoothly, flavour sinking in gently. This is not a powerhouse of a wine, revealing itself gently as the flavour sinks in. A touch of bright red fruit, counter-balanced by savoury spices and a hit of pepper. Not too acidic or oaky or fruity, just a very nicely balanced wine. Perfect with tomato-based turkey mince lasagna.

[Michael R]

I should be working so I think I'll procrastinate by posting


2007 Etienne Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ-Canet
The image that spings to mind is sitting on a new bench overlooking the coast eating some roasted and salted macadamias.

Quality descriptor

Fwiw, I'm loving 07 pulignys at the moment, had a couple of Louis carillons recently, one was sublime, the other was v good, where I bought & drank them said the failure rate was about roughly 30% though!

Cheers
Michael

[sjw_11]

On Friday, a 2011 Tulloch Semillon was everything you'd expect of good, young HV Sem, clear pale green, fresh, crisp aroma of citrus, cut grass, and lemon curd. The palate clear, clean and angular.

Followed by a Tahbilk 2002 Cabernet which is drinking very nicely, with a mix of mature, savoury characters and varietal blackcurrant fruit and spice.

Then a '96 themed night on Saturday with a few friends saw some very fine bottles opened...

Gross Polish Hill River 1996 polarised opinion. The colour (mid gold/bronze) supported 1 school of thought this was past it, but to my mind it was still OK. The nose showed notes of apricot, sherry vinegar, and a hint of petrol. On the palate, what was amazing to me was the acid still present in the structure. Interesting, but I'd def open these if I had any more.

Paulett's Aged Release Riesling 2005: The only non-96 ring in ex the VP. Still yellow/green and youthful looking. Pleasant nose of citrus, lime cordial, and just a whiff of traditional kero. The palate shows this through with a crisp, clean finish. Very good.

Rymill Cabernet 1996... was not expected to show that well, but came up nicely. Definitely in the rich, ripe fruit mode, with blackcurrant and plum compote, dark chocolate and vanillin oak characteristics. Balanced and lingering on the palate.

Penfolds Bin 707 1996... Tremendous. Just astoundingly good, with intense blackcurrant, vanillan and chocolate, graphite, liquer essence and more in an incredibly complex, intense nose. The palate was gloriously focussed, still youthful, with a powerful, lingering finish and firm but not encroaching tannins.

Penfolds Bin 389 1996... Perhaps a shade underperforming vs two other bottles consumed recently (I detected a very slight whiff of cork taint over the top of the fruit), and on the day I preferred the 707. Still this is a nice wine, with ripe mulberry, plum, red berry and spice characters and a youthful, powerful palate.

Wolf Blass Bilyara Vintage Port 1977... Didn't decant for long for fear of this being past it. More brandy than port in some ways - heavily fortified and then matured in brandy hogs heads. A lifted, spirity nose, leading to a sweet, "porty", palate with lifted alcohol and a lingering brandy-esque finish. Pretty good for a very cheap auction price.

[jafa]

2002 Calon Segur St Estephe Bdx 13%Alc. Decanted about 1hr before service. Dark black-red. Expressive claret nose that did
not really carry to the palate of earth and cedar, very dry, good acidity, finishing quite astringent. Good beverage wine which went
well with the medium rare T-bone steak. Hard to pick where this will go with further cellaring. Good.

jafa

[Teisto]

2003 Jacobs Creek Reserve Shiraz - Bought over by some friend for dinner mid week and with the cork protruding knew it hadn't been stored properly but was actually pretty good. Starting to brick on the rim
2007 Tyrrels Rufus Stone Heathcote Shiraz - Opened Saturday night and only drank 2 glasses. Went back to it last night and it was magic. Drinking really well.

[bacchaebabe]

On friday night with pizza, a 01 Seppelts Chalambar went down particularly well. Covered with medals, mostly gold and trophies, this has lost most of its primary fruit with hints of black fruits being most dominant. Lovely structure though and drinking nicely with good weight.

Saturday night started with a NV Lanson which was surprisingly delicious. I like the Lanson NV champagne anyway but usually it's got a lot of lemon and acidity. This was a friend's and it may have had a bit of age on it but it was quite savoury and a perfect foil to some white anchovies and brie. Sometimes NV champagne can be hard work but this was truly scullable.

Followed up with a 01 Saddlers Creek Merlot. We had a choice of three Saddlers Creek wines, which I'm not so familiar with and thought this one needed drinking the most. I wasn't holding much hope for a Hunter Merlot but it was another very pleasant surprise. Some lovely blackcurrent filling the air on opening and this carried through to the palate. Suprisingly good body for a merlot with no hole in the middle palate at all. Very enjoyable.

Finished with a 98 Dalwhinnie Shiraz. Another winner although the cork completely disintegrated and took some serious time to get out - especially all the tiny little floaters throughout the decanter. The wine itself was a fantastic example of Victorian shiraz. More blackcurrent, some plums and a faint whiff of spice. Once more lovely weight and drinking right at its peak for my tastes.

[Michael R]

2011 Milton Riesling, freycinet, Tasmania
Quite floral and sweet on the nose, but different proposition on the palate, with bath salts, some grapefruit, adding acidic dryness. Nice balanced wine, not a long termer but didn't budge much on second night. Easy going and enjoyable like the owner and cellar door experience.

[daz]

Wilunga 100 cab shiraz 2010 Very good value for <$11 after a one-off $20 discount for a 6pk. A melange of flavours, plum, red and juicy black cherry, licorice, black olive, black pepper are nicely wound together by subtle cedary oak on the medium finish with lively sour red cherry acid. One bottle left, wish I'd bought more.

[griff]

I should be working so I think I'll procrastinate by posting


2007 Etienne Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet 1er Cru Champ-Canet
The image that spings to mind is sitting on a new bench overlooking the coast eating some roasted and salted macadamias.

Quality descriptor

Fwiw, I'm loving 07 pulignys at the moment, had a couple of Louis carillons recently, one was sublime, the other was v good, where I bought & drank them said the failure rate was about roughly 30% though!

Cheers
Michael

Carillon is a nice maker but I agree, not for ageing. 2007 getting failures already doesn't not bode well does it?

cheers

Carl

[griff]

2011 Milton Riesling, freycinet, Tasmania
Quite floral and sweet on the nose, but different proposition on the palate, with bath salts, some grapefruit, adding acidic dryness. Nice balanced wine, not a long termer but didn't budge much on second night. Easy going and enjoyable like the owner and cellar door experience.

Went to Milton I assume. Where else did you get to in the end?

cheers

Carl

[Michael R]

Still down here, back to syd on Sunday.
Loving Tassie, cant wait to come back, and will post properly on return to syd, however have struggled to get to all the recommended wineries, a lot are closed for winter. Freycinet was good, so was pooley, Morilla wines were a touch ho hum, milton was a great experience but wines weren't earth moving. Delamere and dalrymple are closed. Hopefully get moores hill and Velo tomorrow, with chromy and barringwood on thurs.

Cheers
M

[dlo]

Somewhat mixed bag over the last few weeks or so.

The disappointments -

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2001 - a whole lot different to the last bottle that was, most surprisingly, incredibly stunning. The colour from this bottle was an unattractive "old" gold, the wine ok, but with those developed, slightly oxidised, honeyed characters that a lot of corked-sealed Hunter Sems get and especially from this source. 80 points (last bottle I gave 94! - so be warned)

Seppelt Dorrien Cabernet Sauvignon 1996 - mildly scalped from the dreaded TCA - but enough for me to tip the considerable remainder down the sink. N/R

Egon Muller Scharzhofberger Riesling Kabinett 1998 - slightly ullaged, lots of leaking evident under the capsule and oxidised on nose and palate. Pretty well buggered. 58



The successes -

Earl Pierre Gaillard Cote Rotie 1999 - this is very smart, very well-made with a short/medium drinking window. Not overly apricotty which is a good thing. About 88 points.

Stonyfell Metala 1971 Vintage Port - in fantastic condition (as has been all of the many bottles I've opened in the past months) and an absolute joy to drink - about 95 points

Lakes Folly 2009 Cabernets - a very fine wine, extremely well made, beautiful balance with considerable potential for a long and successful life. 93 points

Maximin Grunhaus Abtsberg Spatlese Riesling 1998 - glorious moderately sweet German riesling in the prime of its life. Infantile colour, amazingly pure, pristine and classy. A great Mosel! 93

Jean Grivot Nuits-Saint-Georges 1er Cru Les Pruliers 1999 - another fine, elegant pinot from a very good maker and a very good vintage. Lots of sous bois under the red plum and cherry fruit. Nice pinot sap cut in the finish too. Just about ready. About excellent from me. 89+

Petaluma Tiers Chardonnay 2002 - recent auction purchase - good fill level, great looking, pristine cork - plenty of yellow gold colour, major frontal sensory explosion on bouquet and in the mouth. Fully blown, but in a good way, with heaps of butterscotch, Rolls Royce oak, major impact peaches and cream fruit ....and so on and so on with a trail of complexities ....... We all liked it, but a little of this goes a long way. Hard to rate, and definitely needed food ... I'd say about 91. If you're into this worked style, you'll love it. I was impressed, but you will most probably need to drink this soonish if you have any, I would think.

Goundrey 2006 Offspring Riesling - Holy toledo's is this good or what? Lovely florals, limes, minerals and terrific acid cut. About 93 on my card.

Frederic Esmonin Gevrey-Chambertin Estournelles-St-Jacques 1999 - this is firmly excellent for a Gevrey Premier Cru vineyard (but just not in the class of some of the great vintages of, say, Clos St Jacques from Rousseau and the like). The pale colour suggests "thinness" but the wine had a deceptively attractive nose and some fruit-derived punch remaining on the palate. The secondary development of this wine is near complete with some perplexing tertiary morel and game character now becoming apparent. It oozes a fineness and elegance, is well balanced and you'd go quite some distance to find a well-kept bottle. It needs to be drunk over the next several years. About 90 points

[AaronL]

Hey Dlo

Interesting note on this one:

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2001 - a whole lot different to the last bottle that was, most surprisingly, incredibly stunning. The colour from this bottle was an unattractive "old" gold, the wine ok, but with those developed, slightly oxidised, honeyed characters that a lot of corked-sealed Hunter Sems get and especially from this source. 80 points (last bottle I gave 94! - so be warned)

What's your take on when a wine gets to this age and you get a bottle like this. It seems to be a bit of a grey area. Obviously it wasn't as good as the last one, but does that make it faulty? The wine can be good as you mentioned, but should we expect that every one of these wines should be that good (ie if they're not that good, you should request a replacement) or are you just lucky to get a good one. Of course, the cost of this particular wine softens the blow and doesn't lead to too much regret.

For everyone else, this is not a cork v screwcap debate, so no hijacking please

[ticklenow1]

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2001 - a whole lot different to the last bottle that was, most surprisingly, incredibly stunning. The colour from this bottle was an unattractive "old" gold, the wine ok, but with those developed, slightly oxidised, honeyed characters that a lot of corked-sealed Hunter Sems get and especially from this source. 80 points (last bottle I gave 94! - so be warned)

dlo,

I bought a 6 pack of these when they were released and I've never experienced bottle variation like I had with them. A couple were severely corked, a couple were just yuk and a couple were wonderful. It really put me off buying the label. Sad really, as they are excellent value when on sale and I always hear nice things about them as well.

Cheers Ian

[cuttlefish]

The Elizabeth is now pretty much entirely under screwcap, isn't it ?

[dlo]

Hey Dlo

Interesting note on this one:

Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon 2001 - a whole lot different to the last bottle that was, most surprisingly, incredibly stunning. The colour from this bottle was an unattractive "old" gold, the wine ok, but with those developed, slightly oxidised, honeyed characters that a lot of corked-sealed Hunter Sems get and especially from this source. 80 points (last bottle I gave 94! - so be warned)

What's your take on when a wine gets to this age and you get a bottle like this. It seems to be a bit of a grey area. Obviously it wasn't as good as the last one, but does that make it faulty? The wine can be good as you mentioned, but should we expect that every one of these wines should be that good (ie if they're not that good, you should request a replacement) or are you just lucky to get a good one. Of course, the cost of this particular wine softens the blow and doesn't lead to too much regret.

For everyone else, this is not a cork v screwcap debate, so no hijacking please

Bottle variation from cork-sealed Hunter semillons has been a bane for me for over 30 years. McWilliams, by far the worst, but Tyrrell's not far behind. Some of this problem is most likely due to poor storage issues as well. Tyrrell's did not have temperature controlled storage for decades! They released their Vat 1 semillons cellar door and to wine club members soon after bottling, then left the rest for 5 years, "in the hands of mother nature", to be released as an aged release. I've noticed the bulk of these "aged release" sems to be "stuffed", when the cases I bought at release are fresh and vibrant many years down the track. Hence, I don't buy aged release Vat 1's that have not been kept under temperature-controlled conditions.

As to returning bottles that are not up to scratch ..... I just don't bother these days unless it was a bad fault (eg TCA) and a bottle of some value. When you have as many bottles as I have in the cellar, and buy a lot on the secondary market, you tend to take the good with the bad.
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