What's Happening at Lindemans?

[Chuck]

The Lindemans Coonawarra Trio of Limestone Ridge, St George and Pyrus are being sold at a discount of 50%, even on its own website. Are these the latest Treasury wines to be culled from the stables. Can't understand why as they have always been benchmark wines although current prices are eye watering.

Carl

[Luke W]

I think the St George 2012 went for about $189 for a 6 pack delivered! I tried the 2012 Limestone Ridge and found it pleasant enough but not outstanding. Halliday gave it 96 I'd give it 93 or 94.

[Michael McNally]

I just ordered a three-pack, one of each wine, for $99 delivered to give them a decent try.

I bought some of the 2010 Limestone Ridge, but have yet to crack a bottle.

Cheers

Michael

[Waiters Friend]

I just ordered a three-pack, one of each wine, for $99 delivered to give them a decent try.

I bought some of the 2010 Limestone Ridge, but have yet to crack a bottle.

Cheers

Michael

Likewise - just ordered two three packs. But I won't look at them for a couple of years at least.

[tarija]

What is the possibility that the best grapes from the Lindemans vineyards are used for Penfolds' high-end products?

[Chuck]

What is the possibility that the best grapes from the Lindemans vineyards are used for Penfolds' high-end products?

My thoughts exactly but will this create an oversupply in Wynns products? There's just so much wine you can sell and in an already oversupplied market this could be a problem. A few years ago someone said there was an excess of production of around 30% over demand. Production has declined but I think the ocean of wine is still out there. The high end market may not be so oversupplied and I hope for the sake of all the good producers out there things get better. There have been a number of suicides of good people who deserved a better outcome.

With the AUD/USD down to 0.7900 in late Friday New York trading the exporters may get a free kick and hopefully the Chinese corruption crackdown will ease as this has dried up the market for super premium wines.

Carl

[phillisc]

Hi, thanks to those here who sent me a PM.
Whilst the price I have just paid for a dozen is about a dollar more per bottle than what others have quoted here...its a safe bet and still a pretty sharp price.
Make hay while the sun shines me thinks, 2012 vintage should be pretty good.

I always have a laugh thinking about the time my girlfriend and I were on one of our first trips to Coonawarra in the 80s and going to Rouge Homme, picking up the stunning 78 Cabernet and some fabulous Nursery Rieslings from the Lindeman's CD.
There were about 10 of us at the Rouge Homme CD having a tasting, when much shouting could be heard out the back.
A most heated expletive filled exchange between 4 winemakers responsible for making 707, John Riddoch, Lindeman's (St George, Limestone Ridge and Pyrus) and Rouge Homme, over who had the rights to the 'best' fruit for their label.

Seems 30 years later not much has changed, although there would be no shouting now, just a memo from Southbank.

Agree with your comments Carl re Wynns.
I can't see Wynns going much further with expansion of their range, other than more dual single vineyard releases as they did for the 2010 vintage.
Has not been a release from the Harold, Davis or Johnson's vineyards for a while now and no releases to date from other individual blocks e.g. Sharam, Childs or Mackillop.

With 12 reds released from the 2010 vintage and likely to be 11 or 12 from the 2012 vintage, something has to give...either quality or price.
Perhaps WCE can take a leaf out of Lindemans book...RRP 2012 John Riddoch...likely to be $150+ (a joke quite frankly)...but at $75 perhaps far more consumer friendly.

Cheers
Craig

[Chuck]

It never ceases to amaze me that you can pick up matured bottles of JR from great vintages at around 50% of current release prices. And if you are careful they come from cellars of good provenance.

Go figger!

Carl

[felixp]

What is the possibility that the best grapes from the Lindemans vineyards are used for Penfolds' high-end products?

My thoughts exactly but will this create an oversupply in Wynns products? There's just so much wine you can sell and in an already oversupplied market this could be a problem. A few years ago someone said there was an excess of production of around 30% over demand. Production has declined but I think the ocean of wine is still out there. The high end market may not be so oversupplied and I hope for the sake of all the good producers out there things get better. There have been a number of suicides of good people who deserved a better outcome.

With the AUD/USD down to 0.7900 in late Friday New York trading the exporters may get a free kick and hopefully the Chinese corruption crackdown will ease as this has dried up the market for super premium wines.

Carl

Chuck, I live and work in China, and rest assured, the Chinese corruption crack-down will not only not ease, it will become more intense and widespread in the next 18 months. Everyone is running scared, and you can be certain there will be no substantial "gifting" of serious wine in the foreseeable future.

[GraemeG]

The Lindemans Coonawarra Trio of Limestone Ridge, St George and Pyrus are being sold at a discount of 50%, even on its own website. Are these the latest Treasury wines to be culled from the stables. Can't understand why as they have always been benchmark wines although current prices are eye watering.
Carl

Huh. I'd say their 'benchmark' status was well and truly gone post-98 vintage. I understand the annual production is minescule these days; more a nod to history than any serious attempt at marketing decent wine.
The compromise, degredation, and prostitution of Lindemans from its position as Penfolds only serious quality rival from the 1950s to the 1980s is one of the great tragedies of Australian wine history.
I wonder who's going to write that history book?
cheers,
GG

[phillisc]

Graeme, I will dips me lid to you on this one, as you have probably tried more of the post 98 vintages than me, so I can't comment on the quality of the wines.

However, I concur 100% with the marketing of such former premium products.
No CD presence for yonks, lumped in with anything else that sits outside of Wynns or Pennies in the TWE portfolio.

Have been to the Coonawarra Wine Gallery many times and what strikes me is a general sense of public apathy, in terms of focusing on a brand, rather now its anything from Jamieson's Run, Mildara etc. etc.
Bit like the whole Jacobs Creek scenario, I have not got a clue with what's in the range anymore, (apart from Steingarten and Lawson's...where is Jacaranda Ridge??) what is premium, what is new, what's been rebadged, deleted etc.

I find the TWE strategy with their Coonawarra brands rather perplexing.
Pennies, can draw magnificent fruit for special bin offerings and indeed charge special prices, but apart from Magill as a single vineyard make, offer one of the most disappointing, green, harsh, acidic wines in Bin 128...have never understood why this wine can not shine...should be an absolute cracker, particularly in favourable vintages.
Wynns, up to 12 reds a year and possibly counting...perhaps destined to be the new Pennies of the south?
Lindemans, Rouge Homme, Mildara/JR, and anything else seemingly lost in the abyss.

Pity really, as 80s and 90s St George's, LR and Pyrus are some of my favourites from the region.

Cheers
Craig.

[Chuck]

So it's goodbye to The trio and hello to more Wynns premium labels. Wynns certainly do have the better brand in the district. Over the past few years it did seem like a loaves and fishes story at Wynns although many would argue the vineyard rejuvenation program has brought more quality grapes to Wynns.

Carl

[Luke W]

Tasting the 2012 St George and finding it a class above the 2012 Limestone Ridge even tho' I got the last half dozen for $27. Its a massive blackberry concoction that needs at least 2 to 3 hours in a decanter but it it quite elegant and classy as it settles. I'm surprised that Halliday only gave it 96 as its at least as good as some of his higher rated scores later.

[Luke W]

and nose to die for and wonderful balance......

[Waiters Friend]

and nose to die for and wonderful balance......

Thanks Luke. I wasn't planning on opening any of the three for 2-4 years, and nice to know the St George would appear to have the concentration to get better over that time.

Does anyone have tasting notes for any or all of the trio?

Thanks
Allan

[dlo]

The Lindemans Coonawarra Trio of Limestone Ridge, St George and Pyrus are being sold at a discount of 50%, even on its own website. Are these the latest Treasury wines to be culled from the stables. Can't understand why as they have always been benchmark wines although current prices are eye watering.
Carl

Huh. I'd say their 'benchmark' status was well and truly gone post-98 vintage. I understand the annual production is minescule these days; more a nod to history than any serious attempt at marketing decent wine.
The compromise, degredation, and prostitution of Lindemans from its position as Penfolds only serious quality rival from the 1950s to the 1980s is one of the great tragedies of Australian wine history.
I wonder who's going to write that history book?
cheers,
GG

Not James Halliday. The 2005 St George is an excellent wine.

[n4sir]

So it's goodbye to The trio and hello to more Wynns premium labels. Wynns certainly do have the better brand in the district. Over the past few years it did seem like a loaves and fishes story at Wynns although many would argue the vineyard rejuvenation program has brought more quality grapes to Wynns.

Carl

The trio will still be around: one of my Treasury sources got back to me today about this topic and the 2013 vintages are due to be released in the next few months.

I seem to remember reading/hearing the Lindemans St George and Limestone Ridge vineyards had similar issues to Wynns, but unlike them could not bring in additional sources of fruit from the rest of the Fosters/Treasury Coonawarra portfolio to make up the shortfall until they are fully rejuvenated. Releases have been miniscule in volume compared to the glory days of the nineties, but my understanding is that it's because of the vineyards and not because the fruit is heading elsewhere.

The reason why the 2012 is being dumped? Put that down to ordinary marketing and loss of identity, which combined with a low production run isn't exactly an appealing combination to the major retailers/grocers - they have been slow movers for a while, I guess someone had to make the tough call to get them moving out the door again...

Cheers,
Ian

[Rossco]

The reason why the 2012 is being dumped? Put that down to ordinary markering and loss of identity, which combined with a low production run isn't exactly an appealing combination to the major retailers/grocers - they have been slow movers for a while, I guess someone had to make the tough call to get them moving out the door again...

Cheers,
Ian

I'm well over 30 and my first introduction to lindemans many many years ago was thier
Bin range. At $5 a bottle (I was a barman at a function centre), it's very safe to say their identity has been lost for decades. The bastardisation of the Brand at such a low (generational) price point has quite simply instilled the notion that all lindermans wines are cheap massed produced rubbish.

To my detriment (and clearly that of the brand) I have refused to buy any lindermans products due to this notion.

[phillisc]

Rossco, I agree to a point that certain wines in a large portfolio can tarnish or indeed bastardise a brand...Rawson's Retreat, Thomas Hyland and even perhaps 407 anyone??

Whilst Lindeman's Bin 65 Chard was/is a million plus case production, thankfully most of the range was/is pretty good and IMHO did not suffer the above problem of having to support a plethora of average labels behind a few great ones.

My memory escapes me but Lindeman's did a Padthaway range...vineyards selection or premier selection?? The reds were particularly impressive at a price point of around $10 or so.
Nothing too much wrong with the Coonawarra reds, Nursery Riesling and of course some fabulous Hunter offerings re Shiraz and Semillon Bin releases.

Not having a cellar door in the Coonawarra has killed them...Coonawarra Wine Gallery often draws more punters having a latte than a red.

I think they will want to be pretty careful when the 2013 releases come around, a far less hyped vintage than 2012, and $35 is now the set price. Pushing this back up to $50 plus will sound the death knell.

My 2c
Cheers
Craig

[Mahmoud Ali]

It really is a shame about what has happened to Lindemans. When I was in the Coonawarra some years ago, in 2001 it was, they used to have a cellar door just outside Penola, to the north on the left. I tasted the trio of reds from the '98 vintage and recall thinking that they were pretty good. Since then I've only had the '01 St George, last year it was, and it too was good, though still young, primary and dense, and in need of more time.

If indeed the three reds are made in "minuscule" quantities due to vineyard rejuvenation, then the brand has deteriorated badly if Lindemans have to slash the price to spur sales. It also doesn't auger well for the wines when vineyard production goes up. It reminds me of when the Rosemount Show Reserve wines went on sale at Dan Murphy's for about $10, less than the price of the regular Rosemount wines. Where are they now?

Lindemans regular bin wines were alway bulk wines that offered reasonable value, especially the Bin 65 Chardonnay. But the real gems were the Hunter Valley 4-digit bin wines, the regular bins ending in xx03 and the reserve bin ending in xx00. The last time I saw them here in Edmonton it was the regular Shiraz from the '95 and '96 vintages. I've never had the privilege of have the Semillon. Do they still make these bin wines and have they a cellar door in the Hunter Valley?

Mahmoud.

[sparky]

Lindemans regular bin wines were alway bulk wines that offered reasonable value, especially the Bin 65 Chardonnay. But the real gems were the Hunter Valley 4-digit bin wines, the regular bins ending in xx03 and the reserve bin ending in xx00. The last time I saw them here in Edmonton it was the regular Shiraz from the '95 and '96 vintages. I've never had the privilege of have the Semillon. Do they still make these bin wines and have they a cellar door in the Hunter Valley?

Mahmoud.

Yes and yes. Not as easy to find but most definitely still around. The wines that is... I imagine the Cellar Door at Ben Ean is pretty easy to find with a smart phone Ask them about the Hunter wines when you get there.

I was lucky enough to run through the 2012 release Trio with Brett last year and really enjoyed them. Great expressions of region, vineyard & terroir and with a personality distinctly different from Wynns. If anyone's ever in the area and interested, get in touch and I'll see if I can line you up with Brett for a chat.

[phillisc]

Lindemans regular bin wines were alway bulk wines that offered reasonable value, especially the Bin 65 Chardonnay. But the real gems were the Hunter Valley 4-digit bin wines, the regular bins ending in xx03 and the reserve bin ending in xx00. The last time I saw them here in Edmonton it was the regular Shiraz from the '95 and '96 vintages. I've never had the privilege of have the Semillon. Do they still make these bin wines and have they a cellar door in the Hunter Valley?

Mahmoud.

Yes and yes. Not as easy to find but most definitely still around. The wines that is... I imagine the Cellar Door at Ben Ean is pretty easy to find with a smart phone Ask them about the Hunter wines when you get there.

I was lucky enough to run through the 2012 release Trio with Brett last year and really enjoyed them. Great expressions of region, vineyard & terroir and with a personality distinctly different from Wynns. If anyone's ever in the area and interested, get in touch and I'll see if I can line you up with Brett for a chat.

Thanks Moira, I met Brett Sharpe last year at a tutored tasting he held...lovely bloke.
Might just do that next time I am in Coona.
Cheers
Craig