The Auswine Forum

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - WYNNS CABERNET VERTICAL: 06-15 - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (6/11/2024) Back in 2003 Stephen put on a dozen-bottle vertical of the Wynns Cabernet (actually labelled ‘Black Label’ since about 2009?) covering 1986 and 1990-2000. This is a later iteration, served blind, with only ten...

Wretched, awful news.

Nice notes. I'd certainly have bet against both Vat 9s being drinkable at that age (brett, etc) yet not surprised about the St Peters'.

Only ever been to Cafe Sydney on company coin.
Never been to Aria!

2015 Bleasdale Cabernet Sauvignon The Iron Duke - Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, Langhorne Creek (31/07/2024) {screwcap, 14.5%} Showing some age in the hue. Evolving nose of stewed blackberry, soy, raisin, balsamic. Medium full weight, warm, with flavours tracking the aromas. Mild tannins, s...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - EXHUMING RELICS - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (7/08/2024) “Bring your oldest wine to share” was the theme. That meant back-ups! Perhaps surprisingly, nothing was undrinkable, although one or two bottles turned out to be for emergency use only. Otherwise the overall standard was ama...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - WINE I LIKE - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (3/07/2024) Change of theme to a blind tasting of ‘favourite’ wines, more-or-less. Pretty much a free-for-all, at least that’s how I took it. Five absentees, two guests, and yet there seemed to be plenty of wine. 2012 G. H. Mumm & Cie C...

Thought it was a pretty crap vintage, wasn't it? Or was that just Hunter? I tasted the same year of both the SV and Hilltops back in Jan at the winery and wasn't really impressed with either.

2019 Jean-Pierre Moueix Bordeaux - France, Bordeaux (30/06/2024) {diam, 14%} A touch thin at first, but a bit of air in the glass did wonders for this. Dry, crunchy, soft currant fruit, dilute but not unripe. Medium weight. Soft dusty tannins, lowish acidity. It's all a bit short but not unbalanced...

...and in terms of units of measurement, I was always amused by a wine forum signature which defined the 'millihelen' : The amount of beauty required to launch a single ship. That was me, for a while, somewhere! On Grange: cellaring trumps winemaking, winemaking trumps vintage. Vintage is core, but...

2017 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Black Label - Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra (25/05/2024) {screwcap, 13.4%} Mild, hardly-developing leafy-but-ripe mainstream cabernet. Little different to my last note in Jan-23. Ticks all the boxes but doesn't really excite ...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - AARON'S HUNTER SHIRAZ - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (5/06/2024) So Aaron digs into the cellar to line up some long-pedigree Hunter wines for a combined horizontal/vertical (a matrix?) tasting with dinner. Some history, then, for context. Mount Pleasant’s Old Paddock & Old Hill ...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - SANGIOVESE & TEMPRANILLO - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (1/05/2024) Sangiovese & Tempranillo - odd sort of a theme; I’m not sure in what way these two grapes are related, except they might be regarded as the premier grapes of Italy & Spain respectively. Unless, of course...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - BORDEAUX NIGHT - Glass Brasserie, Sydney (7/02/2024) Bordeaux night. New Year, new venue, same old crowd, more-or-less! All the Bordeaux in this country seems to be either under $50 and pretty unremarkable, or over $500 and sometimes remarkable. Such a big hole in the mid-palat...

WINERY VISIT: CENTENNIAL & CHERRY TREE HILL - Southern Highlands, NS (1/03/2024) Centennial Vineyards A decade plus since my last visit and the Tuscan-style complex here seems unchanged. Except, all the reds bar pinot have gone from the vineyard; soil, weather not suitable. Big mistake, then. S...

CLONAKILLA WINERY - Canberra (26/01/2024) In the ‘new’ cellar door set-up since the last visit, although I discover that it was opened in 2016, so that’s how time flies when you become an old codger. On a public holiday the place was nearly deserted; all wines for sale also on tasting, with no tast...

[url=https://www.cellartracker.com/event.asp?iEvent=53719] CAMPBELLS CELLAR DOOR - Rutherglen (25/01/2024) [/url] A drop-in visit rather too near to closing time for this long-time Rutherglen stalwart to taste all the wines on offer (25 table wines plus ten fortifieds!). The corresponding benefit of...

COAL VALLEY WINERIES - Coal Valley, Tasmania (13/01/2024) Pooley Wines Cellar Door is busier than ever, although it’s largely the restaurant that’s flooding the place with people. $15 buys you a tasting of 5 basic wines, then you can taste single vineyard bottlings for $10 a pair. Beyond that, $10 ...

Been a bit slack about posting dinner notes here for a while, so catching up now! NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - MARG RIVER & GREAT SOUTHERN - Fix, St James, Sydney (6/12/2023) Another Margaret River night – following on from 2005, 2008, 2011, 2017, 2021. The theme was meant to compare MR to Great Souther...

I'm a sucker for a grape I've never had before, I gotta say! Often it only confirms why a grape might be obscure, but often you think 'this isn't bad at all', almost to the point of wondering whether the 'noble' grapes are truly better, or just benefiting from a historic accident. That said, there's...

Does anyone else have the problem of not being able to proceed to the target URL when clicking on links such as the one above? Yes. It's been a problem here for a couple of years. The http part of the URL for some reason does not get included in the hyperlink. I generally copy the whole URL into th...

Anyone read Andrew Caillard's mega-book (3 volumes) on the history of the Oz wine industry?
Since nothing ever seemed to come of that tour Andrew Jefford did all those years ago...
Anyway, anyone seen it? Browsed it?

Oh dear. Very low level in the bottle = leaky cork = likely to be oxidised and undrinkable.
Couple that with no name or pedigree (ie. it's not Grange!) and a very average vintage in 1974 and you've got nothing of value.
Sorry.

Yes, likely some proprietary label, not a stand-alone business. Points mean nowt, as Ian says.

I have reasonable experience with Grange, but largely 20th century stuff. The most interesting/best vintages in between based on my experience would be 76, 80, 83, 86, 90, 94, 96; anything beyond that - 98, 04, 08 - I would regard as too young (along with 2010!). But here's a thing. 1989 is a truly ...

NOBLEROTTERSSYDNEY - <>A$40 BLIND - Fix, St James, Sydney (1/11/2023) Waaaay too many wines! Under or over $40 blind tasting was the theme, leavened with another near-case of novelty samples from Andrew. So many bottles that animated fights seemed to break out over table at various points. And I mi...

Mahmoud Ali wrote: ↑Fri Nov 03, 2023 8:50 pm "Christopheroz" in April 2023 said: Beautiful. Still robust but now ageing with elegance and grace

Not only were we at high school together, he's also my wife's second cousin.
(Which, btw, was completely unrelated to our engagement.)
Small world, eh?

I travelled QF international business regularly between 2005 to 2009. Back then it was not uncommon to find a RWT, St Henri or Clonakilla SV in business class. It started going downhill noticeable around 2010? to now when business class means a $25 red. I expect by 2010 the Irish gnome had run his ...

Is there big price competition around business class at the moment, as they're certainly not trying to compete on quality!?!! As I recall the business flight to BKK was booked about 4 months ahead and cost around $7k. Amazing. I used to fly Etihad SYD>Frankfurt annually for a few years, and the 201...

QANTAS BUSINESS CLASS - GROUND & AIR - Sydney, Antique aircraft, Bangkok (3/10/2023-6/10/2023) Qantas Business Lounge Sydney International 3-Oct-23 7.30am breakfast at the increasingly busy Business Lounge at Sydney International. Still, it’s an airport – normal drinking rules don’t apply. And ...