Come in red rover - weekly reports due....

[Kieran]

Gloucester Ridge Cabernet 2001 - Bought as cleanskins on Tyson's recommendation. Nice but unspectacular drink, with enough tannins to offer improvement. I'll open my next bottle in two years and see how they're travelling. At the moment it's just Recommended on the TORB scale.

Seppelt Victorian Reserve Shiraz 2002 - A tasty cool climate shiraz. Everybody has already written enough about this.

Keith Tulloch Merlot 2000 - From a limited run (300 cases). Immediately on opening I regretted it - this wine is huge and could easily use another five years under the stairs. Tannins and flavour aplenty, but it didn't taste much at all like merlot. Alas, no more bottles. Highly Recommended.

Wynns Cabernet Sauvignon 1994 - Decanted immediately prior to serving. Big nose, lots of fruit, oak present but not dominant, still with plenty of firm tannins. Would never have picked this as a 10 year old - probably would have guessed 98. One more bottle, down for another two or three years in which I hope this beauty will peak. Excellent.

Kieran

[Rory]

Had some guests over, including a French exchange student who brought along one of her family's reds, a cote du Bourg, which I have no idea of it now as the bottled got turffed the next day before I got a chance to write it down.
Nonetheless, it was an '01, beautifully fragrant Merlot dominant wine of class and elegance. At 11.5%, highlites, as always how well they can do it without being big.

Deveaux "D" NV. a drier, savoury style, but I like it. Good bubbles and length.
'92 Moss Wood Cab/Sauv. Cigar box, cedar nose yet displaying some rich cassis as well. Round mouthfilling palate, still showing some primary fruit laced with some acid and tannin. Wonderfull length, this is a vey good, but not great, Moss Wood and will develop better yet. Had double decanted it 3 hours previously, and it stood up well. Great wine, loved it. Yet in complete contrast to the French wine.
'96 Taylors St Andrews Cab/Sauv.
Also had 3 hours with a double decant, the nose was strong cassis and cedar but, as with the palate, quite a bit of oak hanging around. Quite chewy tannins, but not harsh or astringent. Quite a big wine, but the question would be, will the tannins and oak ever soften out and let the fruit shine through. Outclassed by the Moss Wood, may have done better on it's own.
'98 Trimbach Vendage Tardive Gewurztraminer.
Must stop drinking this wine so much! Can't. Too good~ nectar of the gods!!


Rory

[Rob]

2001 Drayton Cab Merlot
Ruby in colour with slight brown tinge. The nose is subduded and not showing much. After few vigerous swirling, blood plum and berry. The palate is short and the fruit is thin with bitter dark chocolate after taste and showing lots of green character. Oak is just noticable and so is the tannins. The wine faded quickly over the period of 2 hours.

[Jakob]

After some thought, I have a possible answer. "Temperature!" A difference of a couple of degrees in serving temperature can make a difference. We had to warm the wines up as my place is pretty bloody cold in winter.

I'm not sure the temperature was the reason, it was still a little leafy after it fully warmed up in the glass at the restaurant, with fairly lean berry-spectrum fruit, no Barossa plums and chocolate, even after I found out what it was. It was so leafy, dusty and berry-oriented on the nose it seemed almost like a Coonawarra or MR cab when sniffing the dregs from decanting. Maybe you got a Shadrach mis-labelled as a Meshach? One of the mysteries of life, I would hope it's not a typical bottle, I didn't like it as much as Ric did, the Stonewell was much better in my ranking of the two.

Hehe, I had a similar thought regarding the Shadrach, but more along the lines of mistaken identity in a dark cellar or by a drunk sommelier, but neither really fits the scenario described
Anyway, I wouldn't be discounting the temperature variable, though it sounds like it just may have been a less than great bottle. The last few I've had have flooded the palate with Barossan Shiraz fruit and chocolate flavours, with a mid to back palate wave similar to breaking into the center of a warm Lindt chocolate ball of the red variety

[markg]

Didn't take any notes but we opened a bottle of 2000 Dutschkes St. Jakobi with dinner last night and it was wonderful. Lovely pure fruits, excellent silky mouthfeel, real barossa chocolatey flavours, its really coming along great.

[TORB]

Didn't take any notes but we opened a bottle of 2000 Dutschkes St. Jakobi with dinner last night and it was wonderful. Lovely pure fruits, excellent silky mouthfeel, real barossa chocolatey flavours, its really coming along great.

Get with the program Mark!

This thread is about what you drank last week, not what you had last night!

Start a new thread or wait till next week

Boy, some people are hard to house train.

But up up the good work.

[markg]

Didn't take any notes but we opened a bottle of 2000 Dutschkes St. Jakobi with dinner last night and it was wonderful. Lovely pure fruits, excellent silky mouthfeel, real barossa chocolatey flavours, its really coming along great.

Get with the program Mark!

This thread is about what you drank last week, not what you had last night!

Start a new thread or wait till next week

Boy, some people are hard to house train.

But up up the good work.

I am still bleary eyed and trying to avoid real work so just posted without due consideration to others sensibilities

[Jakob]

Didn't take any notes but we opened a bottle of 2000 Dutschkes St. Jakobi with dinner last night and it was wonderful. Lovely pure fruits, excellent silky mouthfeel, real barossa chocolatey flavours, its really coming along great.

Couldn't agree more!

...which is good news for those who have some left I always thought that this was a stunner for the vintage*

*May be biased. See avatar.