Melbourne Offline / 21 October

[Redwine&Rum]

man I wish I was there for this. Some really interesting bottles. Looking forward to the write up.

[mjs]

Great stuff Ozzie. The 86 JR is interesting with only first, second, third last and last rankings, nothing in between! The tasting will tell

It certainly is interesting. 86 JR is a phenomenal wine when it's a good bottle and barely drinkable when it's not (which has happened all too often to me). My +1 purchased a few bottles at auction recently. A bottle two weeks ago was awesome. Another last week was terrible. It's like playing Russian roulette.

Those that ranked the JR lower are obviously playing the odds that it'll be a flawed bottle (including myself). I refuse to buy old JR as I've been burnt too many times (oxidation, not TCA). I'm convinced the corks that Wynns used are not very good quality.

You have a lot more experience with Wynns than I'll ever have. Maybe I've just been extremely unlucky? What's your experience been like with older JR's?

"Russian roulette .... hehe"

Ozzie, I think there is no doubt that cork quality across the board was sub-standard in the late 80's-90's. As you say, not just a TCA issue, but oxidation as well. Leads to considerable bottle variability. I think Wynns did suffer/is suffering a bit from this with some bottle variation. It doesn't appear that I have seen it as much as you seem to. If the secondary market is part of the equation, then provenance comes into play as well. The difference between storage in a reasonable well controlled climate vs casual "under the stairs" storage can be significant over reasonable periods of time. Case in point, this time last year had a beautiful '75 Bowen blend at a dinner in Coonawarra. The bottle had been stored well since birth at the winery. A month or so later, I picked one up at auction, supposedly with some confidence about provenance, but it was far more highly developed and nowhere near as enjoyable as the first bottle. I put it down to storage. I do dabble a bit for older bottles in the secondary market, and that has generally been rewarding, but there's nothing like buying at release and sticking it away in good conditions. I still have some '82 JR for example in the cellar that I bought in about '85 when it was released. Haven't had a disappointing bottle.

mjs

[Ozzie W]

What a fabulous night! The variation on our usual theme worked really well. A big thanks to everyone for making it so much fun.

We started with a white.



Then onto the main event. Unfortunately, the Lakes Folly was corked, so it was replaced with a 2012 Mac Forbes Hugh.







We finished up with a 1954 Hardy's Tawny Port.



I'll collate and post up the wine rankings in due course.

I took some photos of the amazing food at Scopri so thought I'd post them too.





More to come...

[mjs]

Really excellent and entertaining night. The blind tasting from a known list of wines was great fun, some notes later as well.

Just an aside, the food (see Ozzie's pics) was excellent as usual. For what TripAdvisor is worth, Scopri is ranked #1 restaurant in Melbourne. Anthony and his team do a great job. The boar fettuccine (pic #3) was outstanding, other dishes excellent as well. The upstairs room is just a great space for an off-line.

[TiggerK]

Looking forward to the results and notes! Obviously corks and their variability play a part in tastings like this, especially with the Riddoch 86 which seems variable, even apart from the cork. I was picking the Moss Wood as your WOTN assuming provenance was good, and knowing a fair few of you might prefer aged Cab over Shiraz in general. Other than that, I'm quite a fan of the Thomson Family so won't be surprised if it does well too.

Food looks good too! Red friendly, and some nice sous-vide rib eye at the end I suspect..

[Ozzie W]

The results are in. The winner was the 1994 Best's Thomson Family Shiraz.

[Benchmark]

Great night.

Wine, food and company was fantastic.

Big shout to Oz and Chris for all the leg work. Nice job gentlemen.

[mjs]

A few notes from the evening. We tasted nine reds blind, albeit that we knew what the nine wines were, just no-one knew the tasting order. All the wines were roughly comparable in terms of quality, so no "roughies" or real icons. After a pre-tasting poll of which wines were favoured, we had to both rank the wines and hazard an educated guess at what each wine was. What could possibly go wrong!!??

Started with a token white from Ozzie, also tasted blind, which ended up being a bit of an in joke, on me as it turned out.

White#1
Bright pale straw, tinge of green, slightly citrus, slightly tropical fruit nose, clearly a chardonnay, nice acid but not too much, clean, fresh, not much oak evident, nice structure and length. Went through new/old world, state, etc. Got to Adl Hills, thought it might have been a Shaw & Smith, then 03/06/09. Went for 09 as it seemed in very good nick.
The wine was revealed as the 2006 Romney Park Reserve Chardonnay, the subterfuge being that it was actually Benchmark's wine presented as Ozzie's. I had arranged a tasting for Benchmark and +1 (or was it rgriffo + 1 ?) at the winery a couple of weeks ago. I have tasted this wine heaps of times and should have recognised it!

On to the reds ... so all nine were on offer to start with, then as we worked through the wines, there was some shifting of choices (guesses) as to what the wines were as one or two more obvious wines were identified or still left to go, or we got more confused thinking that we had tasted four 389's and two Rockford's. It was a lot of fun.

Wine #1
Beautiful colour, slight bit of farmyard, vanilla oak, some acid, tannin grip, black fruits, barnyard blew off after a while. Thought it might have been the '98 389, the '01 389 or the Rockford, settling on the '98 389 17/20
The wine was the '98 Rockford Basket Press 0 from 1

Wine #2
Black red, dusty notes, black fruits and tannins, cassis, oak. Thought it might have been the 04 Cullen but later changed to the Rockford. Somewhat of a blunder given the cassis pickup 16.5/20
The wine was the '01 Penfolds Bin 389 0 from 2

Wine #3
Black red, some menthol, chalky tannins, spice, red black fruits. Thought it was the Bowen Ampelon although was considering the Rockford or one of the 389's. Went for the Ampelon 17+/20
The wine was the '98 Bowen Estate Ampelon Shiraz 1 from 3

Wine #4
Medium black red, freshness on the bouquet, red black fruits, beautiful bouquet, some dusty notes, tannin, mid-weight, nice balance and elegance. Had to be the Best's Shiraz 17.5/20
The wine was the '94 Best's Thompson Family Shiraz 2 from 4

Wine #5
Black red, dusty nose, a young wine, black fruits, good structure, tannins, acid. Had to be the Cullen 16.5/20
The wine was the '04 Cullen Diana Madelaine 3 from 5

Wine #6
Black red (seems a common theme), beautiful black fruit bouquet, but disjointed a bit, big wine, not integrated, bit clunky. Thought it was the '01 389 17/20
The wine was the '98 Penfolds Bin 389 3 from 6

Wine #7
Red rim but black core, beautiful bouquet of red black fruits, mature wine, some leafiness, very nice drop. Had to be the JR 18+/20 and my WOTN
The wine was the '86 Wynns John Riddoch 4 from 7

Wine #8
deep red but thin rim, bit of barnyard initially, medium weight, lovely mature cabernet. Initially thought it might have been the Lakes Folly given the barnyard, but settled on the Moss Wood 18/20 V close 2nd in WOTN for me
The wine was the '90 Moss Wood Cabernet 5 from 8

Wine #9
Corked and revealed as the '99 Lakes Folly. No notes. Replacement was the Mc Forbes Hugh

[Incidentally, was at a Penfolds 2016 release workshop at DM's today, the Grange was badly corked!]

Fortified
Slight green tinge, pale tawny, bit of grunge in it, but medium raisiny fruit, sweetness but not excessive
The wine was the '54 Hardy's Show Reserve McLaren Vale Tawny

A great tasting using a fun format. It was interesting seeing the wine selections change as we worked through the wines. At one stage we thought that at least four of the wines might have been 389's, good stuff. Very interesting to see the results that Ozzie has presented above, the Best's was a universal favourite and hence deservedly WOTN for the group. Both the JR and the Moss Wood were favourites for some, but not for others, so surprisingly, they were not rated as highly overall.

Couple of comments on the excellent food

Vitello Tonnato - beautiful veal with a tuna sauce, quail eggs, anchovies, beautiful flavour, just excellent
Quail - served with lentils, excellent
Fetticune with boar - standout dish for me
Goat - delicious
Rib eye - excellent

All in all, a great night. Thanks to Chris H and Ozzie for organisational efforts. A smoothly run night, even given the crap weather to start.

[Ozzie W]

Great notes, mjs. I really liked the way the wines were presented as it meant we were all essentially competing against ourselves, having already ranked all the wines. I got 5 out of 8 too. Lots of fun!

The fun continued for some of us after the offline. On the Uber home which I split with Diddy and my +1, the Uber driver received this unsolicited phone call from a lady at a massage parlour. The conversation (on speakerphone) continued for about 10 minutes and was absolutely hilarious. You can't make this stuff up! I don't think I can say any more as I'd be violating the terms and conditions of this forum.

[mjs]

Some uber conversation in the Uber ... hehe

[Benchmark]

image upload with preview

[mjs]

Benchmark, great stuff. Now I just need your camera to make my fat gut look smaller

[Benchmark]

Going to need a better camera

[AaronL]

Moss Wood looks like it was a polarising wine. Perhaps some with more tolerance/acceptance to brett than others

[Benchmark]

Fair chance AaronL.

Once I got the brett I struggled to get past it.

I did not sit on this long. Maybe if I gave it some time it would have improved.

[mjs]

Yes, an interesting wine on the night. I am reasonably sensitive to brett, but didn't really sense that with the Moss Wood. It did have a little bit of what I would describe as barnyard whiff, which blew off. Seemed to be a lovely mature wine, maybe a bit lighter than a few other examples of Moss Wood tasted recently, but it was close to WOTN for me just behind the JR. Others didn't rate it so highly, each to his own!

[JamieBahrain]

Bravo gents . Very interesting offline . Great line up!