Right, what are we/you drinking now .. tonight

[felixp]

Grivot Clos Vougeot 2002
Got home after the Victoria's Secret Xmas Fashion show, decided I needed a western food late night fix, made some ham and cheese toasties (Bega Cheese!!!) and cracked a bottle of this.
Gosh this is good wine. Nose of ripe strawberries, candy, flowers and mint, followed by a full-bodied but brilliantly focussed palate with length to burn. Everything I love about top-end Burgundy, and this has an uncanny resemblance to a top 2000 Pomerol. (would love to see blind next to a 2000 Conseillante). Another great example of why we cellar good wine. 96pts drink: now-2025.

[mse]

Chateau Lascombes 2010

This wine is quite robust on the nose at first when I opened, bursts of Cassis, Blackberry, Mint then Cedar. After 2 hours of breathing, aroma was evolved into Prune, Plum, Pomegranate, Dark Chocolate and Aniseed like. Fair amount of oak and tannin, but by no means harsh, quite a lasting finish. This bottle sets me back at HKD $870 from Watson's Wine in Hong Kong (a bargain compare to Aussie retailers averaging AUD $200+, which I would rather have any 2 bottles of the Moss Wood/ Cullen (not the new Vanya)/ Woodlands/ Xanadu flagships). Though it may not be the most sensational Merlot/Cab I had in my humble experience, but the respective scores of 91 and 90 from Wine Spectator and Jeanie Cho Lee MW are a bit stingy.

[felixp]

mse,
Cho Lee is a really good critic, her palate is very much aligned with mine (easy on the eye too!!). You will generally see much lower scores than you see from the local Australian critics.... if she rates a wine 95, then is will be an earth-shattering experience. 90 from her would be, IMO, about 96-97 from Halliday.
Interestingly, she often scores Australian wine quite highly. What i like most about her is that she likes wines that match well with Asian foods, quite handy if you happen to live in Asia!!!!
As for Wine Spectator, depends who rated it, they have a couple of Bordeaux critics.

[swirler]

Felix. I'm no expert, but I only see scores of around 87-89 for most wines from JCL then they jump to 95+ for Parker wines*.I'd be surprised if any of those wines pared with many Chinese dishes. Oh, I forgot, Bordeaux is the bed wine for Chinese food. Red for prosperity and health-giving properties, high acid to cut through fat, blackcurrant flavours to match with, erm.... The Bordelais have done a great job in educating the Chinese. How could Jennie say otherwise?

I noticed one French winery describing their white wines as 'golden wines.' Don't you just love marketing BS!

*That's my impression. Other than spending a few hours correlating her big marks with different wine styles, that's what it looks like to me.

[mse]

Felix. I'm no expert, but I only see scores of around 87-89 for most wines from JCL then they jump to 95+ for Parker wines*.I'd be surprised if any of those wines pared with many Chinese dishes. Oh, I forgot, Bordeaux is the bed wine for Chinese food. Red for prosperity and health-giving properties, high acid to cut through fat, blackcurrant flavours to match with, erm.... The Bordelais have done a great job in educating the Chinese. How could Jennie say otherwise?

I noticed one French winery describing their white wines as 'golden wines.' Don't you just love marketing BS!

*That's my impression. Other than spending a few hours correlating her big marks with different wine styles, that's what it looks like to me.

+ 1 to some extent, obviously its highly unlikely to have Bordeaux reds that are compatible with majority of seafood (e.g. salt and pepper mantis shrimp, steamed fishes or razor clams, stir-fried crabs or lobsters etc), non-red meat dishes that are steamed, bathed in chilli oil, or deep fried. I am quite certain that the rationale of Jeanie's scoring is not about the compatibility with Asian dishes, as she would have already know that some Asian food can never work with certain wines (Bordeaux reds in this case).

There is a new show on TVB Pearl (Hong Kong free to air TV channel) called "In Vino Veritas 2", Jeanie is one of the hosts. The first few episodes are about New Zealand wine regions, the hosts have been brainwashing the audiences about how stunning NZ Sauvignon Blancs are , which I find that they have been too hard sell to a sickening state (Jeanie is really out of character here).

On a different note, Jancis Robinson is even harder to please, but her publications are more entertaining to read (British sense of humour I guess).

[felixp]

Felix. I'm no expert, but I only see scores of around 87-89 for most wines from JCL then they jump to 95+ for Parker wines*.I'd be surprised if any of those wines pared with many Chinese dishes. Oh, I forgot, Bordeaux is the bed wine for Chinese food. Red for prosperity and health-giving properties, high acid to cut through fat, blackcurrant flavours to match with, erm.... The Bordelais have done a great job in educating the Chinese. How could Jennie say otherwise?

I noticed one French winery describing their white wines as 'golden wines.' Don't you just love marketing BS!

*That's my impression. Other than spending a few hours correlating her big marks with different wine styles, that's what it looks like to me.

Not really sure what you are getting at here, but in case you didn't know, she is Korean, not Chinese. Despite what a Westerner may think, Koreans and Chinese are about as similar as Americans and French.
I subscribe to her mag, have met her several times and been at multiple tastings she has attended. My impressions are not those of being aligned to a Parker palate, if I had to make a call, I would place her half way between Jancis and Neal Martin. Having said that, she often likes the same wines as Parker (as do Jancis, Martin etc)
I have never noticed she seems to have a gap between 89 and 95, but in future i will check. However, she is a strict marker, and anything she rates over 90 I would be interested in looking at.
Poor old Bordelaise, Chinese wine buyers are so difficult to deal with.... having not purchased anything in the ordinary to crap vintages of 2011-2014, watch them load up on 2015!!! Haha, this will send the world Bordeaux market into a spin!!

[felixp]

haha, yea, MSE, that is one crap wine show, destined for the bin after one season for sure. Interesting to see people think that Bordeaux doesn't match with the majority of Chinese cuisine, IMO, it doesn't match with 50% of Chinese cuisine. The other 50% (let's call that 700 million meals a night) go quite well, perhaps very well indeed!!! There is an endless sea of Bordeaux here, quite unbelievable, although 95% of the wine is from Bordeaux satellites and I have never heard of before. Some is actually quite good, but the majority make Koonunga Hill taste like La Tache.

[swirler]

Felix. I'm no expert, but I only see scores of around 87-89 for most wines from JCL then they jump to 95+ for Parker wines*.I'd be surprised if any of those wines pared with many Chinese dishes. Oh, I forgot, Bordeaux is the bed wine for Chinese food. Red for prosperity and health-giving properties, high acid to cut through fat, blackcurrant flavours to match with, erm.... The Bordelais have done a great job in educating the Chinese. How could Jennie say otherwise?

I noticed one French winery describing their white wines as 'golden wines.' Don't you just love marketing BS!

*That's my impression. Other than spending a few hours correlating her big marks with different wine styles, that's what it looks like to me.

Not really sure what you are getting at here, but in case you didn't know, she is Korean, not Chinese. Despite what a Westerner may think, Koreans and Chinese are about as similar as Americans and French.
I subscribe to her mag, have met her several times and been at multiple tastings she has attended. My impressions are not those of being aligned to a Parker palate, if I had to make a call, I would place her half way between Jancis and Neal Martin. Having said that, she often likes the same wines as Parker (as do Jancis, Martin etc)
I have never noticed she seems to have a gap between 89 and 95, but in future i will check. However, she is a strict marker, and anything she rates over 90 I would be interested in looking at.
Poor old Bordelaise, Chinese wine buyers are so difficult to deal with.... having not purchased anything in the ordinary to crap vintages of 2011-2014, watch them load up on 2015!!! Haha, this will send the world Bordeaux market into a spin!!

Wow! Did I say she was Chinese? She is based in Hong Kong which, if my memory serves me well, is in China (although it was controlled by the Americans or was that the French? They're all the same, aren't they!) You do make huge assumptions about 'Westerners.' I've actually been to Korea. It was probably the best province of China that I visited.

[Rossco]

05 dArenberg coppermine rd cab sav. Beautiful wine, but still so young. Screwcap has decades left. Bright primary fruit (think blueberries, blackberries and plums), earth, mint and milk chocolate. Georgous and will only get better. I honestly think 05 was the most underrated vintage of the 2000's.

[JamieBahrain]

Jeannie is in my wine tasting group which numbers about 60. I see her only at our gala events ( like my HofG tasting ) though she is quite busy these days and doesn't make so many.

Another one of our lady members shouldn't be far off her MW hopefully. Delightful person with a passion for less fashionable regions - she's hosting a Hunter Valley event for example which isn't popular in Asia. She's Korean-American if I'm allowed to say that without raising any angst.

[felixp]

haha, yea, be careful Jamie!!!! Pretty easy to raise angst here!!!
well, you should know her by far the best, what do you think, another Parker clone?
love the way she does less well-travelled regions, and has a superb palate IMO.

Jamie, my three sons just sat the WSET level 2 exams this week..... you would love it, they phoned me to moan that half the exam was on Italian varietals!!!!! Felt guilty that their dad did not expose them to this region. I gotta convert myself SOON!!!!!

[felixp]

Felix. I'm no expert, but I only see scores of around 87-89 for most wines from JCL then they jump to 95+ for Parker wines*.I'd be surprised if any of those wines pared with many Chinese dishes. Oh, I forgot, Bordeaux is the bed wine for Chinese food. Red for prosperity and health-giving properties, high acid to cut through fat, blackcurrant flavours to match with, erm.... The Bordelais have done a great job in educating the Chinese. How could Jennie say otherwise?

I noticed one French winery describing their white wines as 'golden wines.' Don't you just love marketing BS!

*That's my impression. Other than spending a few hours correlating her big marks with different wine styles, that's what it looks like to me.

Not really sure what you are getting at here, but in case you didn't know, she is Korean, not Chinese. Despite what a Westerner may think, Koreans and Chinese are about as similar as Americans and French.
I subscribe to her mag, have met her several times and been at multiple tastings she has attended. My impressions are not those of being aligned to a Parker palate, if I had to make a call, I would place her half way between Jancis and Neal Martin. Having said that, she often likes the same wines as Parker (as do Jancis, Martin etc)
I have never noticed she seems to have a gap between 89 and 95, but in future i will check. However, she is a strict marker, and anything she rates over 90 I would be interested in looking at.
Poor old Bordelaise, Chinese wine buyers are so difficult to deal with.... having not purchased anything in the ordinary to crap vintages of 2011-2014, watch them load up on 2015!!! Haha, this will send the world Bordeaux market into a spin!!

Wow! Did I say she was Chinese? She is based in Hong Kong which, if my memory serves me well, is in China (although it was controlled by the Americans or was that the French? They're all the same, aren't they!) You do make huge assumptions about 'Westerners.' I've actually been to Korea. It was probably the best province of China that I visited.

keep digging, my friend. At this rate, you will soon be in China, and you can have a look for yourself.

[JamieBahrain]

well, you should know her by far the best, what do you think, another Parker clone?
love the way she does less well-travelled regions, and has a superb palate IMO.

Jamie, my three sons just sat the WSET level 2 exams this week..... you would love it, they phoned me to moan that half the exam was on Italian varietals!!!!! Felt guilty that their dad did not expose them to this region. I gotta convert myself SOON!!!!!

Private wine tasting group and a public forum so I won't mix the two.

Jeannie has her own set of glassware now so perhaps you could try them ?

[mse]

haha, yea, MSE, that is one crap wine show, destined for the bin after one season for sure. Interesting to see people think that Bordeaux doesn't match with the majority of Chinese cuisine, IMO, it doesn't match with 50% of Chinese cuisine. The other 50% (let's call that 700 million meals a night) go quite well, perhaps very well indeed!!! There is an endless sea of Bordeaux here, quite unbelievable, although 95% of the wine is from Bordeaux satellites and I have never heard of before. Some is actually quite good, but the majority make Koonunga Hill taste like La Tache.

Hi felix,

Half of the Chinese meals go well with Red Bdx would be right, but the sad thing is majority of Chinese (including Hong Kong) people drink wines that don't match with the meal, hence I mentioned the mismatch examples of steamed fish, food bathed in chilli oil etc with BDX red. Once I saw a group of young adults in Hong Kong bringing BDX reds to a Korean Restaurant which they had spicy food like Kimchi stews, Chilli Octopus, Raw crabs, and Fried Chicken (with Chilli sauce).

Sadly, I don't pay attention to any non GCC wines from Bdx. As a low-income earner, I cannot afford to purchase almost all of the GCC wines, let alone spending more time and money on exploring other AOC stuff (VdP is out of question). At this stage, I would prefer not to waste my limited resources to gamble on wines with little/no provenance.

[mse]

Jeannie is in my wine tasting group which numbers about 60. I see her only at our gala events ( like my HofG tasting ) though she is quite busy these days and doesn't make so many.

Another one of our lady members shouldn't be far off her MW hopefully. Delightful person with a passion for less fashionable regions - she's hosting a Hunter Valley event for example which isn't popular in Asia. She's Korean-American if I'm allowed to say that without raising any angst.

Hi Jamie,

Korean-American lady having a shot at MW... Hmm... interesting. Would Jeanie consider hiring her as "body double" (or evil body double) perhaps? That would be twice as easy on the eye for felix.

[felixp]

mse,
you can buy "Bordeaux" wines for as little as 1-2 euro. China is the largest importer of Bordeaux, with 95% of their imports being non-cru Classe. So I get exposed to an enormous amount of the cheap stuff at the obligatory work dinners over here. Most of it is pretty much undrinkable, but there are some nice ones. However, at that price level, South American stuff is much better, particularly Chilean Malbec. (when I take my staff out, always go with the Chilean stuff)
I totally agree that much of it is drunk with the wrong foods, but that is slowly changing. Remember, it was not until 1996 that the (then) glorious leader, Deng, urged his people to drink red wine instead of baijiu (thank goodness) so the country has come a long way since then. The level of wine-education amongst the massive middle class here has improved dramatically in the last few years, and many now prefer to drink Bordeaux whites with seafood and the like. Indeed, China's imports of Bordeaux whites has increased at a rate greater than it's red imports!!!
but I have seen plenty of superb cheap Bordeaux from 09 and 10 in Australian shops over the past four-five years, and they are still around. It is easy to pick up bottles of $30 stuff that, IMO, hold greater interest than many Aus wines at that price level... you just need to search around. I am lucky, HK has a sea of remarkably good Bordeaux for about $30-40, and that is what I drink with my meals most of the time.

[Michael McNally]

Anyway, back to posts on what we are drinking.....

2013 Austins & Co Geelong Shiraz
second night this is open and it is a good wine. Good colour, Great nose of wood, fire pit, black cherry and subtle herbs. Vibrant, savoury shiraz but plenty of grunt in the tannin. This will be better in 3-5 years. Good QPR.

2009 Cirllo 1850s Vines Barossa Valley Grenache
Extremely complex nose of plum compote, musk sticks, brandied oak and earth (wet black dirt). For a six-year old wine the acid is out there, a real signature running through the palate, though somewhat distracting. After 2 hours in the decanter I am not sure this will ever balance the ledger between fruit and acid. The tannin is spot on so maybe all will be well in the end. Don't think this is as balanced as the 2007 or (particularly) the 2008.

Interested to know if anyone else has tried this as I generally like the label.

Cheers

Michael

[Rossco]

Thats it, im convinced. Im going to load up on 2005 SA reds. Yesterday was the coppermine rd, a couple of months ago was the gibson old vine barossa shiraz, and today is the 05 shadrach cab sav. This is stunning and cements my love of barossa cab (again an underrated variety from an underrated vintage). Brown earth, tannins starting to soften, cork was perfect and oh that nose. 2 hrs in the decanter and its really opening up. High quality french oak. Bottle says 15%, but you wouldnt know. Zero heat.... I just cant stop swirling and sniffing!

[Rossco]

2009 Cirllo 1850s Vines Barossa Valley Grenache
Extremely complex nose of plum compote, musk sticks, brandied oak and earth (wet black dirt). For a six-year old wine the acid is out there, a real signature running through the palate, though somewhat distracting. After 2 hours in the decanter I am not sure this will ever balance the ledger between fruit and acid. The tannin is spot on so maybe all will be well in the end. Don't think this is as balanced as the 2007 or (particularly) the 2008.

Interested to know if anyone else has tried this as I generally like the label.

Cheers

Michael

I have had a lot of the 07. No 08's though....and not much of the vincent.

Love this wine and its my favourite grenache.
There is something really special about these wines....and winery which flys under the radar a bit.
Dry grown bush vines on what can only be desceibed as a giant sand dune, no idea how they survived, but the wine is all the better for it!!

[griff]

Sand would be the reason for survival I suspect.

[Hacker]

2012 Amelia Park Cab Merlot. It is as if this has gained both weight and structure since I last tried this lovely wine six months ago. Lovely wine. Happy I have some of the 2013 as well.

[Michael McNally]

2012 Amelia Park Cab Merlot. It is as if this has gained both weight and structure since I last tried this lovely wine six months ago. Lovely wine. Happy I have some of the 2013 as well.

Excellent. Thanks Hacker.

This is slated for my Cab Merlot 'research'. The things we sacrifice in the name of knowledge.......

Cheers

Michael

[catchnrelease]

2009 Les Colombiers de Feytit Clinet - One of two wines I brought back to Indonesia, much better than anticipated. I think this is the third wine (or maybe second?) of Chateau Feytit-Clinet? Dark maroon/red in colour. Quite developed for its age, tannins pretty much resolved and some tertiary development pretty apparent. Structure based on acid. Nice nose, reasonably well balanced palate of cassis, blackcurrant, bit of earth and a slight herbal aspect. Length decent. Overall nice drop. 90

[JamieBahrain]

Emptying the tasting shelf for the week-

Coldstream Hills Shiraz Reserve 2006- Reductive, primary and loaded with blue fruits in a modern and chic style. Improved with a little aeration toward smokey dark fruits in a svelte manner. Next time at least 4 hours in a decanter.

Noon Ecliplse 2008- The heat spiked a bit and seemed short. Vintage ?


by Farr Shiraz 2008- Ironically, the label is stained due a breakage on the way to HKG. A 2001 Bannokburn shiraz ! Anyways, what's with Australia and viognier? This showed like tinned apricots not the amazing aromatics and weight you see from Cote Rotie. Interesting wine, a tad short, though the viognier really stuck out in an SPC fashion.

Aalto 2004- Discarded at one of our informal BBQ's. A few glasses taken from a magnum that costs 350 USD +..... Wow! Now I'm critical of Ribera del Duero but this was impressive and after a long afternoon session the remnants ( a litre + ) were joyful in concentration and balncing the 15.5% .

[bigtinnie]

Help needed here please.
I tried a 2008 Saltram Mamre Brook Shiraz on Saturday night. First 2008 of this wine I've tried. I usually love this wine - particularly the 2006 and 2010 vintages.
I found the 2008 to be big and robust but I could taste 'heat' if that makes sense? Could it be that it hasn't been correctly stored?
Sunday night was a 2013 Barwang Shiraz. How good is that stuff? Wonderfully glugable.

[rooman]

Emptying the tasting shelf for the week-

by Farr Shiraz 2008- Ironically, the label is stained due a breakage on the way to HKG. A 2001 Bannokburn shiraz !

Pity about the 01 Bannockburn shiraz, i had cellared a few of these over the years but finished the last one about 4 years ago. They were a superb wine, almost Northern Rhone-like in style - uber savory and forestal.

Mark

[JamieBahrain]

Yes Rooman it was the last of my 6 pack. Agree with your sentiments.

My baggage handling mates suggest I assume an 8 foot drop/throw onto the tarmac.

I didn't pack so well this time - a sturdy wine box and about 5 metres of bubble wrap! Styro and 5 metres of bubble wrap works best. I had a wooden case of Grand Cru burgundy wrapped in 5 metres of bubble wrap and by the time it go to Oz the box had shattered though thankfully wines fine!

[Mike Hawkins]

Help needed here please.
I tried a 2008 Saltram Mamre Brook Shiraz on Saturday night. First 2008 of this wine I've tried. I usually love this wine - particularly the 2006 and 2010 vintages.
I found the 2008 to be big and robust but I could taste 'heat' if that makes sense? Could it be that it hasn't been correctly stored?
Sunday night was a 2013 Barwang Shiraz. How good is that stuff? Wonderfully glugable.

More likely poorly made... The alcohol is probably high and it sticks out

[WAwineguy]

2008 Seppelt Chalambar Shiraz

Drinking very nicely now. Got a bunch of these from 2005 through 2013, and I've never been disappointed, no matter which vintage. And at around $20, a steal! In fact, the 2013 cost me only $16.45 a bottle!

[WAwineguy]

Oh I should mention last week's dinner party - 10 bottles between about 4 of us:

Started with a couple of bottles of Billecart Rose Champagne
Then a couple of bottles of Montrachet but can't remember which ones!
2005 L'Enfant Jesus
2008 Clos des Lambrays
1990 Lafite - this was the absolute standout
1995 Latour - great, but just didn't compare to the Lafite
1982 Haut Brion
1995 d'Yquem

The Sunday morning headache was worth it!