Punter's Corner

[Mahmoud Ali]

1999 Punter's Corner Cabernet Sauvignon, Coonawarra

Last week, I decanted the wine for a steak dinner. It was dark, tight, and tannic, quite ferrous in fact. Dinner was interrupted and most of the bottle remained in the decanter. Two days later the wine, tasted on its own, was much improved. On the third day, the remnant was poured off into a glass to free the decanter and that glass, later that night, was stll drinking well. Sometimes Australian cabernets can be quite indestructible.

This was a bottle bought in Sydney, perhaps five or six years ago. I know I have a couple of bottles of 1999 Punter's Corner at home in Edmonton but unfortunately I think they are shiraz and not cabernet. I know that I have some 1999 Coonawarra cabernets from Zema and Bowen and, based on my experience with this wine, will treat them accordingly, that is more time in the cellar or very long decants.

Cheers ................ Mahmoud.

[mjs]

Mahmoud,
Sounds good. Unfortunately Punters Corner is no more, so enjoy the bottles while you can. I agree with your comment about indestructibility, with good fruit, structure and appropriate tannin, they can stand up for some time..
cheers, Malcolm

[Mahmoud Ali]

Malcolm, now that you mention it, I vaguely recall reading something to that effect, perhaps on the thread about Coonawarra here on this forum. What exactly happened to them?

Mahmoud.

[Sean]

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[Mahmoud Ali]

Punters Corner was sold to a Coles subsidiary in 2014. (Or that was when it was reported, it had been sold a year earlier.)

It will be a private label in their chain stores. They only bought the brand name and stock.

Pete Bissell (the Balnaves, ex-Wynns winemaker) was making their wines.

The vineyard was sold separately to someone else. Anyone know who?

[url]https://www.theshout.com.au/news/wine-news/c ... ine-brand/[/url]

Did Punter's Corner own their own vineyards? According to the article:

"We will relaunch the brand later this year, and take it to a bigger audience through our network of stores, offering exemplary quality and value," Ramage said."We plan to maintain the existing grape sourcing and winemaking arrangements."

From this quote I presume the "relaunch" will be based on renegotiated contracts with the grapegrowers and winemaker.

Mahmoud.

[Sean]

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[paulf]

Did Punter's Corner own their own vineyards?

There is a link on the Shout article to through to this one -
[url]https://www.therealreview.com/2014/05/14/col ... rs-corner/[/url]

From Bob Campbell's article it says

Muir says he has kept one vineyard with the Punter Corner Retreat accommodation on it, and Balnaves bought another vineyard.

As I understand it, Coles just bought the brand and not the vineyard assets.

For what it's worth, the 1999 Sparticus shiraz did win the Jimmy Watson Trophy too. It's a flawed award in many ways, but it does tell us that Punter's corner was able to produce a wine good enough to stand out that year.

My experience with Punters Corner was that I preferred the shiraz over the cabernet on the couple of occasions I went to cellar door. I thought the 2004 shiraz was a particularly good one. I have no idea whether their shiraz from there is capable of lasting that long so you will have to let us know.

[Sean]

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[Mahmoud Ali]

Good stuff Paul and Sean, much obliged. So, from the above links and quotes above, I gather that the Cole operation will be buying the cabernet from the vineyard that David Muir kept, while the shiraz vineyards (and maybe cabernet as well) were bought by Balnaves. Taking a page from Sean and Paul's efforts I decided to do a bit of sleuthing and looked up Cole's more famous wine store and checked to see what Punter's Corner wines they carried. Lo and behold they had three of them, all cabernets: a regular cabernet from 2014 with what looks like a new label (screwcapped), a slightly more expensive reserve cabernet from 2013 which also sports a new label (screwcapped), and the even more expensive 'Sovereign' cabernet which has the older lable but no reference to the vintage and cork sealed. I suspect the new labels are bottlings post acquisition, while the Sovereign is from the stock they acquired. No shiraz though, presumably because it now belongs to Balnave.

Interesting that both of you prefered the shiraz to the cabernet. My '99 shiraz is from the same year as their Jimmy Watson 'Spartacus' which begs the question, were there any Spartacus made in the vintages when you preferred the shiraz?

Mahmoud.

[Sean]

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[Chuck]

Have found the Cab to be a knife and fork job early on but it does eventually come together before the fruit fades.