Melbourne Offline / 19 August / Coonawarra vs. Margaret River

[Ozzie W]

Amazing night. Wines were phenomenal. Details to come.

[mjs]

An evening of superb wines, good food and plenty of good conversation. A thank you to Chris H for booking the venue (upstairs at Scopri), it really is a great venue to indulge ourselves in wine and food. Very hard to pick a WOTN, some contenders from both MR and C, overall quality was outstanding. More later.

[Ozzie W]

Photos of the bottles in the order they were served:








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[Chris H]

Amazingly not a dud, and no corked wines. Reminds me how good Cabernet can be when aged well and drinking at its peak. Some brief notes :

2009 Pierro Chardonnay
Aromatic, almost floral white peach. Delicious mid palate with a fairly soft finish.

1995 Cullen Cab-Merlot
Mid red, maturing at the edges. Attractive elegant cassis, violets and cedar on the nose. Rich, softly tannic, some tar, great fruit length supported by integrated oak.

2001 Cullen Cab-Merlot
Deep red. Reticent initially, slightly closed. Deep fruit on the palate, oak prominent. Needs more time to unfurl.

1985 Moss Wood Cabernet
Maturing mid red. Cedar, bay leaf and blackcurrant fruit on the nose, reflected on the palate. Great condition and drinking beautifully.

1998 Bowen Estate Cabernet
Mid red. Surprisingly refined for the vintage with excellent blackcurrant fruit and great balance. Lovely drinking.

2006 Katnook Odyssey Cabernet
Relatively youthful dark red. Good depth of blackcurrant fruit but lots of oak. Too young and not integrated yet. May always be oaky.

1996 Wynns John Riddoch Cabernet
Deep red. Dense fruit and plenty of oak. Needs more time to integrate the oak into the wine.

2010 Cape Naturaliste Torpedo Rocks Cab-Merlot
Youthful red. Cassis and violets nose. Very nice wine, youthful but fruit dominant and easy to drink for its young age.

2007 Moss Wood Cabernet
Youthful red. Lovely cassis-violets nose. Similar fruit spectrum to previous wine but more assertive in the 2007 style.

1990 Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet
Mature red. Lovely balance and great drinking, Has been for a while, and continues on a long drinking plateau.

2010 Houghtons Gladstones Cabernet
Blackish-red. Aromatic cassis, mocha and a touch of eucalypt. Lots of fruit on the palate, and relatively approachable for a young wine.

1995 Bests Great Western Cabernet
Maturing red. Aromatic nose and good easy drinking. From their cellar so in good condition.

1986 Wynns Coonawarra Cabernet
Lovely leafy cassis fruit, typical of the best of the marque when well aged and cork permits. At its drinking peak.

Morris 120 year Anniversrary Liqueur Muscat
Nice with coffee. Plenty of rich raisiny fruit.

[mjs]

Thanks for the notes Chris, a very impressive line-up all of which had something to offer. For me, the '85 Moss Wood and the '90 and '86 BL's were faves. Both Cullens were also very good. Can't pick a WOTN, other than cabernet is king!

[Benchmark]

Looks like an outstanding night!

[mjs]

Looks like an outstanding night!

Shell and your presence was missed

[Rory]

Yep, went into this thinking I'd have the differences nailed... Yeh, right. Admittedly it gets harder to pick between the two regions with the wines over 15 years of age, but I seriously had to readjust my focus to get even half of them correct.

Wines were very good to outstanding., really enjoyed the night, thanks Lads.
'95 Cullen was elegant and magical, '96 Riddoch balanced but still too young, the two Black Labels were awesome.

[Benchmark]

Looks like an outstanding night!

Shell and your presence was missed

Cheers mate.

It must have been a refreshing change to not have a predetermined WOTN

[Chris H]

Even Grumpy would have liked them

[grapeobserver]

Outstanding wines and company; I can't recall attending a more interesting and high quality tasting of Australian cabernet. There's a lot to be said too for tasting the wines blind; the grand labels here more than held their own. The differences between the two regions proved fairly slight - Coonawarra usually, but not always, presenting a different acidity profile, and in the aged examples, more tannins than the MR examples. Descriptors offered fewer clues on this tasting, although at the margin, the MRs tended more to blackcurrant/violets and Coonawarra to black olive characters.

[TiggerK]

Great lineup people, aged Cabernet is indeed king IMHO, closely followed by aged Pinot Noir. I'm particularly jealous of the 85 Moss Wood as I've yet to have a properly great aged WA cab and it sounds like that was one of them. Well done all!

[Chris H]

Defintely harder to pick blind these days, without the minty Coonawarra Cabernet characters standing out like days gone by.

Reflecting on the results of these three dinners, the "reserve" styles from Coonawarra tend to be made in an uncompromising manner that requires long ageing to drink them at their peak.

[mjs]

Defintely harder to pick blind these days, without the minty Coonawarra Cabernet characters standing out like days gone by.

Reflecting on the results of these three dinners, the "reserve" styles from Coonawarra tend to be made in an uncompromising manner that requires long ageing to drink them at their peak.

Chris, if we'd had a St Hugo, I think it would have stood out like the dog's proverbials, always minty imo. Also used to think 20-30yrs ago that there was a minty character in a lot of Central Victorian wines, Pyrenees, Bendigo, even down to Gippsland at times.

For me the "reserve" styles (JR, Tally, Odyssey etc) need a min of ten years before you get a real indication of where they are heading, then they just keep going on for tens more (hopefully). I know you find the oak in some of them a bit more prominent than I do, even with a bit of age, the '96 JR for example, they certainly tend to present as youthful wines for some years (20 in the case of the JR!) with many more to come. Perhaps ten years is my rule of thumb to at least see where they are going (or any wine for that matter really). Its funny though, it still seems like vinfanticide to me to pull corks out of any cabernet with a 2 in front of it .

[Ozzie W]

Highlights for me were all the pre-2000 wines. Something truly magnificent happens to Cabernet once it gets to 20 years of age.

[Con J]

Thanks All for an amazing night. All wines showed well in their own way, highlights were the 1995 Cullen, 1986 and 1990 Wynns and 1985 Moss Wood.

Agree that the oak was more prominent in some of the Coonawarra wines. Maybe it’s the American oak for me.

As a personal preference I think great Aussie Cabernet needs at least 15 to 20 years of age.

Cheers Con.