Adelaide Cellar Door Wine Festival

[Scotty vino]

I'll be heading to this shindig sunday. Attended the 2012 instalment and ended up with quite a mixed bag.
I'm interested in what sort of vibe there is amongst local wineries considering the heat we've experienced in Radelaide
and the upcoming deluge of rain that's been forecast.

A daunting task to get in amongst that many wineries in 5-6 hours but I've been training hard and I think I'm up for it.

Any other forumites attending.?

[phillisc]

Scotty V, was thinking about this.
However, if you have nothing better to do there is a Summer of Riesling tasting with 20 + producers on at the Edinburgh Cellars Saturday 2-5pm.
Went to one of these last year....absolutely fantastic.


Cheers Craig.

[Scotty vino]

Scotty V, was thinking about this.
However, if you have nothing better to do there is a Summer of Riesling tasting with 20 + producers on at the Edinburgh Cellars Saturday 2-5pm.
Went to one of these last year....absolutely fantastic.


Cheers Craig.

Mate, if I could get 2 tastings in 2 days over the line I'd be a starter.
There was a mention of this on the KT wines blog site. Some great producers on hand so I'm sure it'll be awesome.

[redstuff]

I flew down this morning for this. Should be awesome.

[timmspe]

Scotty vino, thanks for starting this thread. I had seen a couple of ads around town, but had forgotten all about it.

I made it along yesterday. It was a fun and well organised event.

The first stop was Laughing Jack. The GSM was a highlight, and the nicest GSM that I encountered during the event, so I headed back at the end of the day to get a bottle. Then Rojomoma - The Chiaro was nice, and the Petit Verdot, but the latter didn't seem to stand out as its own variety. Then Hart of Barossa, pleasant wine, but not many other notes here. The Irvine Merlots IMO lived up to their reputation.

Then Clare Valley. We caught up with friends here so the tasting was a bit less systematic. We sampled wine from Paulett, Kilikanoon, and Pikes. The Pikes Riesling and Shiraz were highlights from this section.

McLaren Vale and Langhorne Creek were a bit rushed. Cape Barren and Yangarra each had an excellent suite of wine. The Yangarra Roussanne was decent. Maxwell was too busy to visit at the time. Stopped very briefly at Scarpantoni, Bremerton, and Lake Breeze.

Adelaide Hills. Shaw + Smith - Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay were well worth it. Pikes and Joyce had a nice enough Grüner Veltliner. Overall, I thought the Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir was a bit thin and unexciting, but perhaps under different circumstances it would have been easier to appreciate any complexity that might be present. I was most impressed by the Barratt Merlot, and collected a bottle at the end of the day.

The Islander Estate from KI was definitely a pleasant surprise. The Investigator Cabernet Franc was excellent, and I picked up a bottle of the Semillon, and the Malbec.

We visited Wynns in the Coonawarra section. You could pay for a tasting of the John Riddoch and Michael. Rymill had a great line-up. The 2010, '08 and '04 Coonawarra Cabernet, and the '06 Surveyor were available, and each was excellent.

The food and produce deserve a mention. Alpaca meat was being served, raw, and as sausages, burgers and steaks. Red Cacao seemed to have the best chocolate, and there was a wide variety of cheese going around as well.

Anything else worth mentioning... The crowd was pretty diverse. Spittoons were few and far between. It became tedious to excuse yourself from the person pouring the wine, walk 10 m away, through the crowd, to the spittoon, and then have to fight your way back to the tasting table to sample the next wine. Toward the end of the day, the crowd, palate fatigue, and inebriation made it difficult to make more meaningful assessments of the wine on offer. We managed though, and had an excellent day.

How did others go?

[rosewaterwrx]

Agree completely on the Islander investigator Cab Franc.My wine of the day. Other highlights were Pikes the Merle, Shaw and Smith M3 Chardy (love it). Unfortunately I forgot to try the yangarra wines at the end of the day. Usually they really stand out as something a little bit different.

Disappointments - Kay Bros Block 6 2011 was clearly the result of a wet vintage, 2003 Grange was great to try but really a bit bland and too young, same goes for the 2010 707 just way too young to get a grip on. Can't say getting to try them for free is something I should complain about however.

I tried the raw Alpaca and thought it was amazing. A little like raw Tuna actually. I also agree that the spittoons were few and far between and it was very annoying to have a nice spot and have a good conversation with the person pouring only to have to wander off after each wine.

Enjoyable day and great value. Although I think I'm getting further and further away from loving SA wines these days. Where's the Yarra and Mornington event??

[phillisc]

"You could pay for a tasting of John Riddoch and Michael"....WTF!!

Good to see TWE keeping in the spirit of things...have the punters not already paid enough at the front door without being gouged again?

Would not suprise me one bit on top of the $120 ticket price of the upocoming Langton's 6th if this sort of caper goes on...if there is I hope there is a mutiny.

Cheers Craig

[Scotty vino]

Off the bat my Fave wines were;
K1 Pinot noir.
Kellemeister Whiskers Grenache
Kellemeister Wild Witch
Bremerton Special Release Tempranillo Graciano
Mitolo GAM
Olivers Taranga HJ reserve shiraz (WOTD). Absolute belter!
Mollydooker Carnival of love
Was also underwhelmed by Kay bros across the board.
They were tasting an 2004 Block 6 which was good
but the OT Hj shiraz blew the pants off it for me.

Went with a moderate contingent of friends and we all enjoyed the day.

[Michael McNally]

Went with a moderate contingent of friends and we all enjoyed the day.

Was the contingent moderate in size or moderate in consumption?

Cheers

Michael

[Scotty vino]

Went with a moderate contingent of friends and we all enjoyed the day.

Was the contingent moderate in size or moderate in consumption?

Cheers

Michael

moderately sized with sizeable consumption.

[TrickyH]

Off the bat my Fave wines were;
K1 Pinot noir.
...

I thought the 2009 K1 Pinot was a fantastic wine but when I tried the 2010 at cellar door a few weeks ago I was completely underwhelmed. It seemed so different to the 2009 with quite a pungent nose, acidity overwhelming the fruit and a short finish. I'm wondering if the banana I ate in the carpark before tasting affected my palate After your favourable review I think I will revisit because the 2009 has been one of my favourites to pull out over the last 18 months.

EDIT: Were they tasting the Tzimmukin as well?

[Scotty vino]

Off the bat my Fave wines were;
K1 Pinot noir.
...

I thought the 2009 K1 Pinot was a fantastic wine but when I tried the 2010 at cellar door a few weeks ago I was completely underwhelmed. It seemed so different to the 2009 with quite a pungent nose, acidity overwhelming the fruit and a short finish. I'm wondering if the banana I ate in the carpark before tasting affected my palate After your favourable review I think I will revisit because the 2009 has been one of my favourites to pull out over the last 18 months.

EDIT: Were they tasting the Tzimmukin as well?

The banana may well have done it!
You want a crazy burst of tannins?, then eating a banana (particularly an under ripe one) before a tasting will do it.
As for the Tzimmukin. I'm not sure, I went straight for the pinot.
As with most wine gigs like this, attempting to do full tasting lists will hold you up, particularly when there's only 2 spittoons.
Unless it's a producer I'm partial to across the board I'm cherry picking all the way home.

[TrickyH]

The banana may well have done it!
You want a crazy burst of tannins?, then eating a banana (particularly an under ripe one) before a tasting will do it.

Thanks. I feel an experiment coming on.

[Scotty vino]

Heading to the cellar door festival for 2015.
Seems not much has changed in terms of format and producers attending, but it's a bit of fun with friends so why not!?
I am facing a dangerous prospect though. My newly found cellar is done in terms of racking.
195 bottle capacity ready and waiting.
Currently the only bottles sitting in it are 6 X 2012 GC Ap blocks.
Other than that 3 cleanskins and a test bottle of water I was using to conduct temperature experiments.
The temp in the cellar has survived two good doses of Adelaide heat and I'm fairly satisfied
that it's up to the long term task of cellaring wine in a passive environment.

So with all of my other bottles resting in fridges, it's off to the festival with my nanna trolley....
I can see where this is heading.....