Sue Hodder: I Should Have Listened to Her.

[Mahmoud Ali]

image.jpeg

1996 Wynn's Cabernet Shiraz Merlot, Coonawarra, (13%) - In 1999, when passing through the UK, I spotted this in a supermarket in Purley, at a time when there was no Wynn's in my home town. Brought it back on the plane. Sue Hodder, the winemaker, on the back label, said "a wine to enjoyed relatively young."

Last night I opened the bottle. I should have listened to her, but I didn't, so now I've lost her. The wine that is, not Sue Hodder. The wine was over the hill, past it, gone.

A gone, gone, gone,
She's been gone so long,
A gone, gone, gonel,
She's been gone so long,

Ever since she left me,
I sure feel all alone,
A little misunderstanding,
I can't get her on the telephone,

Hanging out on auswine forum,
Living in a different world,
Hanging around with the gang on the forum,
Talking about my wine.

My wine, she was the world to me,
She's gone away, across the sea,
My wine, she's just a memory,
She's been so long away.

A gone, gone, gone .......

Sung to the tune of:
https://youtu.be/7y4CI-L7rZ4

[Michael McNally]

Given how much you like bottle age Mahmoud, this must be truly past it!

I assume from the song that you drank the bottle anyway.......

Cheers

Michael

[phillisc]

Interesting...
'found' 2 '86s, 2 '90s and 2 '91s of this label...think their mates are somewhere in the hole.
Cheers
Craig

[Mahmoud Ali]

Given how much you like bottle age Mahmoud, this must be truly past it!

I assume from the song that you drank the bottle anyway.......

Indeed it was past it, but only just palatable so we opened another bottle with our dinner. I did in the end finish the bottle, some later that night and then the next day. Sigh, thinking of what might have been.

Mahmoud.

[mjs]

Not a label from Wynns that I would normally keep for a long time or expect much from it over that long time

[tarija]

One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Although sometimes there are surprises with these cheapies.

[JamieBahrain]

One cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

Although sometimes there are surprises with these cheapies.

I found the Wynn's red stripe, even on a budget in the early days, a bit of a shocker. I never found it a cellaring proposition as it lacked structure and fruit from memory- well truth be told, I thought I was drinking petrol. Others may have had a different experience. Jamieson's Run about that time may have been a better bet before it was diluted in quality.

I have a good mate who proudly cellars "cheapies" from that era with pretty good results- Koonunga Hill, Waterwheel...etc. Certainly a few rungs above solid quaffing but not near a fine wine experience.

[Mahmoud Ali]

I quite agree that this wine should have been broached a long time ago. It got lost in a case of wine along with my '96 Wynn's Black Label. A recent move allowed me to access the case of some of my '96 Aussie wines and this was the one most in need of drinking.

In another forum I mentioned that after I returned from the UK with my Wynn's the '96 Black Label appeared on the market. At that time I was about to leave for an extended visit to Australia and decided to save my money and did not buy the wine. It so happened that my Malaysian Airways flight to Sydney went via Melbourne and while in transit I saw the very same Black Label selling for A$25 at the duty free store. I was shocked because the '96 was only C$13.50 at home (the currencies are pretty much the same). When I got to Sydney the first I did was call home to ask my mother, god bless her, to pick up four bottles of '96 BL.

Mahmoud.

[Bobthebuilder]

My experience with that wine is in certain good vintages it drank well up around 10 yrs then fell apart very quickly.
By 15 it was gone and beyond.
In lesser vintages it only went downhill from a couple of years from release

[Ian S]

I used to quite enjoy it, definitely one you could open soon after release. I never cellared one for any length of time, but it was a useful cellar defender to delay opening the black label

[sjw_11]

This thread just reminded I still have 4 bottles of the 2006 edition of this for some reason... really must look for those next time I am back in Adelaide. Under screw cap so hopefully the will be hanging in there. Only cost about $9/bottle which was a pretty good price.

[Mahmoud Ali]

This thread just reminded I still have 4 bottles of the 2006 edition of this for some reason... really must look for those next time I am back in Adelaide. Under screw cap so hopefully the will be hanging in there. Only cost about $9/bottle which was a pretty good price.

Now that I know better I would say that you should drink it sooner rather than later. That your bottles are screwcapped might give it a longer life. Jeremy Oliver's recent guide give it a drinking window of 2011-2014 though I do not know if it was for cork or screwcap.

Mahmoud.