1996 Koonunga Hill

[Mahmoud Ali]

1996 Koonunga Hill, Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon, South Australia. (13.5%)

It's been about eight years since I last opened a bottle of the 1996 Koonunga Hill. Back in 2010 the wine was dark, youthful, primary, and firm, and to my mind in need of more cellaring time. Last night we opened a bottle. Surprisingly there wasn't much sediment. The colour was still dark, to the rim, but in the burgundy red spectrum, with a glowing rather than a watery rim. The nose was dark-fruited, herb and mineral inflected, with a hint of oak. The palate has softened considerably. It has developed into a meduim-bodied wine, plush on the attack followed by briary fruit, polished leather, and a savoury finish of dry, smooth tannins. I think this wine is in a sweet spot and those who like fruit will enjoy the attack better than the finish, while those who are looking for an older profile it will be opposite. For my own part I liked both aspects of the wine though the delineation down the middle confounds me: is it at it's peak or has it got more positive evolutuon ahead? This is the second vintage of Koonunga Hill that I have had success with. The other was a 1989 that I had in the early 2000s, when it was 13 or 14 years old. With four more bottles of the '96 I can afford to experiment.

AnniversaryDinner'18a.jpg

It an anniversary so we started our evening with a N/V Lanson 'Black Label' Brut. This was an older bottle from a batch of Lansons that I bought a couple of years ago. This one has no disgorgement date on the label but since I have a Lanson with a 03/2013 disgorgement date on the back label I can assume that this bottle predates it. With at least five years of post disgorgement aging this was quite evolved. It was richly endowed, full of toasty brioche, yeast, nuttiness, and a long, complex finish. Until recently Lanson did not undergo malolactic fermentation so they were very dry and austere when young so it really needed cellaring. After dinner we opened the 1996 Noval Late Bottled Vintage, Unfiltered (Bottled in 2000). Because this was bottled unfiltered and after the minimum four years instead of the maximum six years, this can be considered a cellaring style of LBV and with age should be decanted. This I did but because I stood it upright that afternoon I found that a couple of soft, coagulated lumps of sediment managed to get into the decanter and then had to leave about a sixth or seventh of it in the bottle. Now ruby red with hints of orange, this LBV was on the drier side, the palate fully developed, a medium-bodied port with good balace and very sippable on it's own.

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

[Michael McNally]

Great notes, thanks Mahmoud. I can't answer the question on whether this will develop further as I would have wagered it was beyond its best already at 22 years of age - but you do like your wines well-developed. A shame the same care and attention is no longer provided to this much loved old favourite which was always a solid wine.

Cheers

Michael

[paulf]

Personally, the bottle there I am most interested in is the LBV. Any idea whether Noval declared a vintage port that year? I assume they did. I've only ever had a couple of LBVs at that age and they were really fabulous (they were Quinta de la Rosa 91 and 94) tried back in 2014. I have a couple of the Noval 03s tucked away (as well as several of the VP), and I want them to be 20 years old before I crack one open

[Mahmoud Ali]

Paul, by wondering if Quinta do Noval made a declaration in 1996, you have touched on one of the more interesting questions regarding LBV ports: to buy in declared or non-declared vintages. On one hand we have the idea that in declared vintages there is sufficient good fruit to make a superior LBV. However, there is also the argument that in un-declared vintages the best fruit of the vintage is likely to go into the LBV blend. In my experience I prefer to leave it in the hands of the producer, opting to rely on their style and reputation. To my mind it was Smith Woodhouse and Warre's that were at the pinnacle of what are the cellaring style of LBVs. They have been making this style of port for a very long time, my first brush with one being the 1982 Smith Woodhouse LBV, a very fine port from an un-declared vintage. In essence, they are usually bottled four years after vintage, the very minimum, and are unfiltered. Many of the early drinking LBVs are bottled five or six years after vintage and filtered. Sometimes even these easy drinking LBV may provide more depth than usual. For example Taylors and Grahams are not known for their cellaring ability however occasionally they produce one with more guts than usual.

Noval is an interesting case. It had been in the doldrums but its fortunes changed when Christian Seely came on board as the managing director in the early '90s. Almost immediately the quality of their LBV soared. I happened to taste the 1994 LBV when I noticed two different bottles of Noval on a store shelf. The Noval LB and Noval LBV were intermixed in the same shelf slot. The LBV label mentioned that it was ''Unfiltered' so I bought a bottle and drank it soon after. I was so impressed that I went back and bought the remaining two bottles. Then, some years later half bottle of the 1994 appeared and I sprang for a case. Roy Hersch from FortheLoveofPort went on to say that the 1994 Noval LBV was one of the finest LBVs he's ever had. Never saw a '95 but bought a couple of the '96 sometime later. By the way, the LBVs were called Noval LBV reflecting the fact that they also used fruit from outside the quinta. Today they have "elevated" their LBV to a Quinta do Noval LBV which means all the fruit in the bottle comes from the quinta (farm or vineyard), therby making it a single quinta LBV. I wouldn't hesitate to buy a Noval LBV port

On the question of declarations, port houses make a decision to declare based on a blend of their own vineyards (quintas) and purchases from other high grade vineyards. In undeclared vintages they often make vintage ports from their own quintas (single quintas), for example Graham's Quinta do Malvedos, Taylor's Vargellas, or Fonseca's Panascal. Noval is single quinta estate, Quinta do Noval, they can make a vintage port every year if they so choose. Noval makes three different vintage ports:

Quinta do Noval 'Nacional' VP - made from ungrafted, phyloxera-free vines from a plot within the Noval vineyard - famous and expensive.
Quinta do Noval VP - made from the Noval vineyard.
Noval 'Silval' VP - made from Noval vineyard and other vineyards.

Paul, is your '03 LBV a Noval or a Quinta do Noval? And which VP do you have. This post has made me realise that I have more Noval ports than any other, LBV, VP and Silval, though no Nacional. Passed up an opprtunity to buy the 2000 Nacional for C$600 because I was about to go an a year and half backpacking trip across North Africa. Sigh.

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

[paulf]

I guess we have hijacked your thread... At least you are complicit in it Mahmoud.
I've always liked fortifieds but one of the things that got me into real Port was a tasting of the Noval Ports at one of the better wine shops in Melbourne some years ago.
The 03 Quinta do Noval LBV impressed me, so I bought a couple of bottles of that. it was the first time I had come across that sort of tannic structure in a Port. I loved the 03 VP too but at the time, I thought that the money they were asking for an 03 was more than I could afford so I didn't get any. I did buy a couple of bottles of the Silval - an 97 and an 05 as well as a couple of bottles of the Cedro red wine. Not all that much later I decided I could justify the price of the Noval 03 VP so I went and bought some at auction. I also have a couple each of the 94s and 2000s as well as a bottle of 04. It didn't hurt that auction prices were about half the going rate at retail. I don't have any Nacional though. I've only ever tried the 1980 which is good, but I think they were asking a $1000 AU a bottle so that was never going to happen
I'd love to be able to get my hands on some Smith Woodhouse or Warres LBV. I own quite a few of the VPs for both across multiple vintages, but never see the LBV for either. We just don't see the LBVs here for a lot of brands.
Those Quinta de La Rosa LBVs I mentioned were tasted on one of Roy's tours - I've been twice and both times were a lot of fun, very educational and worth every cent despite not being cheap. I'd love to go again so I'm hoping the Australian dollar gains a bit more strength to bring the tour price down
Declarations are an interesting one - I'm pretty sure, based on my own tastings, the opinions of others I respect and some of those in the Port trade that I have had the opportunity to talk to about it, that both 01 and 04 would have been declared if 2000 and 2003 hadn't been. I own about 18 bottles of the 01 Vargellas because when Costco opened in Melbourne they were stocking it. I bought everything on the shelf on two separate occasions.
The o4 Vargellas and Malvedos are both very very good and the 04 Vale Meao is one of the best young VPs I have tasted

[Mahmoud Ali]

No need to apologize, wines mentioned in the post are up for discussion. You are fortunate to have gone on one of Roy's tours, I am envious.

With your obvious interest and appreciation of port, I'd like to know if there is any Australian port that you like or cellar.

One thing worth noting is that the cork of the Koonunga Hill has 'Penfold's' stamped on it. Old bottles of Australian wines are notorious for having plain corks with nothing but perhaps a code number on it. I have always suspected that the high incidence of "corked" wines in Australian wines is due to the use of cheap corks.

Mahmoud.

[paulf]

With your obvious interest and appreciation of port, I'd like to know if there is any Australian port that you like or cellar.

The main one for me is and has always been the Stanton & Killeen for a Vintage Port style. The 1992s were the first bottles of any wine that I bought to cellar. I had one of the originals I bought back in the 90s, last year and it was superb. I did recently buy a few Bailey's and Pfeiffer, also both VP style.
I don't drink a lot of and tawny and even less Australian tawny but when I do I tend to prefer the Barossa over Rutherglen. The Seppeltsfield Para is obviously a benchmark and I still have a couple of older single vintage bottles that aren't the 100 year old. The Grant Burge 10 year old and 20 year old tawnys were often good too but I haven't had one in years.

One thing worth noting is that the cork of the Koonunga Hill has 'Penfold's' stamped on it. Old bottles of Australian wines are notorious for having plain corks with nothing but perhaps a code number on it. I have always suspected that the high incidence of "corked" wines in Australian wines is due to the use of cheap corks.
Mahmoud.

Poor quality corks was one of the major factors in the uptake of screwcaps here. There has always been a suspicion that we were getting a lot of the product that wouldn't have made the grade in Europe, but I don't think that has been definitively proven

[n4sir]

1996 Koonunga Hill, Shiraz/Cabernet Sauvignon, South Australia. (13.5%)

It's been about eight years since I last opened a bottle of the 1996 Koonunga Hill. For my own part I liked both aspects of the wine though the delineation down the middle confounds me: is it at it's peak or has it got more positive evolutuon ahead?

Bottle variation and batch variation play a major role in how long a large volume wine like this will last - I noticed your bottle is definitely an export label, and was possibly in better condition than this locally sourced bottle drunk last October (admittedly purchased at auction last year which itself is always a gamble):

[img]https://i.imgur.com/ayGH7Ee.jpg[/img]

1996 Penfolds Koonunga Hill Shiraz Cabernet Sauvignon, South Australia (cork): 13.5% alc. 51% Shiraz, 49% Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from the Barossa Valley, Bordertown, Padthaway & Coonawarra, matured 12 months in French & American oak. Just over medium garnet/brick. Despite a perfect looking cork this is heavily developed bordering oxidized, a bit of gunpowder matching leather and plum, menthol, rum & raisin chocolate, mothballs and camphor wood. The palate’s sweet and soft but fading, the fruit drifting away as the velvety but soft tannins take over. I suspect this is not a good bottle, but still quite drinkable.

The last Penfolds Rewards of Patience (7th Edition) had a suggested drinking window until 2018: it may hang on quite a bit longer but I'm not sure there's a hell of a lot (if any) real improvement to be gained in cellaring it many more years.

Cheers,
Ian

[Mahmoud Ali]

Ian,

You are correct in assuming it was an export bottle. My bottles were bought when it was the current release here in Edmonton, Canada, and you are spot on with provenance being an important consideration. Interesting that the 7th edition of The Rewards of Patience suggested a drinking window of 2018. My copy of the 6th edition has a suggested drinking window to 2015. It seems that the '96 Koonunga Hill refuses to conform to expectations.

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