The Auswine Forum

We had a bottle of this the other night and boy, we just couldn't get into it. We tried it over three nights but the shrill acid (and I normally love acid), "green" tannin and heat on the finish just left us cold. I appreciate that it could do with a bit of age but still, it was barely drinkable.

On the other hand we had a bottle of Bourke Street's Pinot Noir 2012 (grapes from Tumbarumba) and it was delicious and is only going to get better.

Cheers, Travis.

Ordered some but not received yet. Winestate gave it 5 stars. To my experience from previous vintages, it is one of the best Pinots in its price range. May be it was just a bad bottle!?! Even though much less than cork, I've seen bottle variation with screw cap too.

Thanks UFO. I was so surprised by it that I'm thinking of grabbing another bottle... just to check.

Cheers, Travis.

FWIW it just grabbed a gold medal at the Adelaide wine show.

Very good wine I think.

ufo wrote:Winestate gave it 5 stars.

This means very little IMHO, based on a few of their 5 star wines failing miserably for me, I've now given up having any belief in Winestate ratings. Another nail in their coffin was Bob Campbell stating he adds 2 points to his standard ratings for anything put into Winestate magazine..... Big points obviously sell more copies.

But nothing against Coldstream Hills, bought one of these the other day, but yet to try it.... Hmm, ufo, we may have both been planning to drink it on the 19th? Maybe I'll take one for the team and open it beforehand.

TiggerK wrote:

ufo wrote:Winestate gave it 5 stars.

This means very little IMHO, based on a few of their 5 star wines failing miserably for me, I've now given up having any belief in Winestate ratings. Another nail in their coffin was Bob Campbell stating he adds 2 points to his standard ratings for anything put into Winestate magazine..... Big points obviously sell more copies.

But nothing against Coldstream Hills, bought one of these the other day, but yet to try it.... Hmm, ufo, we may have both been planning to drink it on the 19th? Maybe I'll take one for the team and open it beforehand.

Well, I have great faith in Winestate ratings. Major reason for this faith is the fact that all the judging is done blind by respected and well qualified judges with different back grounds in wine industry.
May be Bob Campbell shouldn't judge for Winestate and only judge wines based on label in non-blind tastings.
I've never had any disappointment with any wine that I've purchased based on ratings in Winestate.

I suppose the issue is not if a Winestate rated 5 star wine is a good wine, more if it's a 5 star wine way better than some of the ones they rate at 3 or 4 stars, often the opposite is true for me. But they're just like any judging panel I expect, hits and misses, and all based on how it showed on the day, you say I say etc.

What I really should have said is that tasting a wine for oneself is the only real way to know if you're going to love the wine and score it highly! Basing decisions on others opinions is a start, but fraught with potential disappointments.....

Mind you given your love of Sauvignon Blanc ufo, we may never see eye to eye on everything!

Lovely pinot. I've gone through at least 6 over various dinner parties and put another 6 in the cellar. If you get it at the right price you can't go wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts guys. I can easily get another bottle at a stonking price, as it's being dumped at a massive American retail chain, but the first bottle was so average that I can't be bothered potentially wasting another $20. I hope that it was just my bottle which was average.

Please post more tasting notes here as you drink them guys.

Cheers, Travis.

Maybe try a bottle from a retailer where you know the condition of the bottle might be a little more *ahem* assured?

Gary W wrote:Maybe try a bottle from a retailer where you know the condition of the bottle might be a little more *ahem* assured?

Good point Gary. I've had quite a few different bottles from the "American Retailer" over the last year with only one obviously out of condition (TCA). Next time I see a bottle of it at a private retailer I'll grab one. This has got me intrigued. How could a wine polarize people so? I've had a few forumites PM me to agree with me and yet there are others on here who really enjoy it. Is it possible that there is a quality issue here with different bottlings of this vintage? Why is a wine such as this turning up in Costco?

We like Coldstream Hills a lot, we even went there on our honeymoon and bought a stack of their wines. There's only one way to sort this: One bottle from Costco and one bottle from a local independent, opened side-by-side.

Cheers, Travis.

Travis:

I'm not a Coldstream fan but when I tried this I didn't think the acidity was very high..and according to the specs it is 6g/L and 3.6+ pH so definitely not high acid...Could have just been the bottle..

TCA nothing to do with retailer or condition. It's there the minute the cork goes in the bottle.
With Costco - I don't know. I think a lot of stock may have travelled across the world and back...I've not had any people say they don't like it. Surprising. I've had it 3 times from 3 different sources. All the same.

Thanks Polymer and Gary. It must have been the bottle. I guessed as much when drinking it, hence why I put this post up, as it was so... unusual. I could have taken it back but not being able to pick a fault, other than it being out of condition, I just took it on the chin. Agree with TCA as well being a fault not due to storage. Cheers once again for your tasting input, it's what makes these types of forums great. Without it I would have just written this wine/vintage off.

Cheers, Travis.

Costco is the largest wine seller in the US...
They tend to supply their stores around the rest of the world with a mix of locally bought stock and "one off" container lots of assorted stuff from their US supply chain... when they started with 1 store it was the more the latter, though now I assume more the former.
Their model is 3000-4000 product items, and no consistency, i.e. you go one week they have XYZ, the next week its gone.. this is especially true with wine (except their own Kirkland label). Its pretty much all done as job lots.

So it is POSSIBLE this wine could have gone Victoria to say California and then into a warehouse, packaged with toilet paper and crisps and back into a container and back to Melbourne or Sydney... (perhaps via a failed US retailer or distributor)... But given their scale now in Aus, it may have been sourced locally.

No problems with this wine, and I'm glad I have another 5 left. Typical Yarra Valley pinot in the $20-30 range. Not overly delicate, but the typical strawberry and cherry characters are there along with some good supporting oak. Nothing wrong with my (screwcapped) bottle.

You must have just got an off one.

Cheers

Allan

TravisW wrote: I've had a few forumites PM me to agree with me and yet there are others on here who really enjoy it.

Why the PM to express their opinion. Am I missing something or is there something the rest of us should worry about? I'm in Canada so maybe I'm out of reach of any Auswine Forum hitmen.

Mahmoud.

Mahmoud Ali wrote:

TravisW wrote: I've had a few forumites PM me to agree with me and yet there are others on here who really enjoy it.

Why the PM to express their opinion. Am I missing something or is there something the rest of us should worry about? I'm in Canada so maybe I'm out of reach of any Auswine Forum hitmen.

Mahmoud.

No one is safe Mahmoud.

Looks like the bottle I had was a dud.

Cheers, Travis.

The "Esplanade" version of this we had recently was not good at all!