The Inconsistencies of Cellartracker

[Mahmoud Ali]

I enjoy drinking mature wines, from moderately old to the very mature. Since the early days when I was trying to build a cellar and at the same time save for a lengthy backpacking trip I have had to be judicious in my purchasing. So what I did was buy the occasional top-flight wine and fill in the rest (country, region, varietal) with wines from good producers and good vintages that might make old bones. So while I have a few Vat 9s, Meshach, John Riddoch and their ilk, I also have plenty of things like Wynn's BL, Tahbilk, and Taltarni.

One of my purchases was the 1998 Tyrrell's Brokenback Shiraz, a Hunter Valley wine from a good producer and vintage and in fact the first red Hunter Valley wine I found here in Canada (I brought back my Vat 9 from Australia). Now, it is easy to put wines in the cellar, even modest ones, but it is more difficult to know when to pull them, especially if one buys in two and threes. Wine critics are very good at reviewing new releases and estimating drinking windows (usually on the conservative side it must be said) but less likely to be served older vintages of modest wine, the emphasis being on old bottles of the classics. Cellartracker is a better resource, to see if anybody else in the wine world has tasted these wines, and what they thought of them.

For some reason I recalled my Brokenback Shiraz earlier today and decided to see if anybody had had this wine and found that the last two notes were in 2012, about a month and a half apart. The first note was in February 2012 and from a pinot lover according to his moniker:

"Nice colour still but drinking past its prime, cherry, plum and still some nice fruit but a little thin" and gave it 81 points.

In March 2012 another poster wrote:

"Mid-ruby in the glass, with very fine sedimentation. Dark dusty nose of forest berries, wood and peppery spice. Taste is congruent, extending berries, leather and pepper in a lean, graceful trajectory. Tannins are very fine but still grippy, while clear bright acidity giving still-good structure and evidently savoury undergrowth with a lengthy but clean finish, are strangely reminiscent of an aussie pinot noir especially so with the leather notes and umami mushrooms balanced with berry acidity. Still a rather decent bottle, it reveals how elegantly a hunter shiraz might age. Soft enough to go with lightly seared scotch-fillet wagyu and procini mash, as was had with the boys" and gave it a ringing endorsement with 94 points. He even thought it resembled a pinot!

That was five years ago, but they are two very different views of the same wine, it being either past its prime or in a glorious phase of maturity.

You may be wondering why I am telling you all this but if there is question here it would be what store do you place on Cellartracker notes on older wines, especially if you don't know the poster, their tastes, and the provenance or procurement of the wine.

Any thoughts?

Mahmoud.

[Alex F]

Tyrrell corks.

[Duncan Disorderly]

Good question.

Some of the reviews can be wildly different, but I guess that with much older wines there is also likely to be greater variation. One imagines cellaring conditions vary as wildly as taste too.

I tend to take greater stock in a review like the second one in the OP. I also like that you can look at a poster’s previous reviews to get a feel for their taste and importantly the wines their drinking. If your ‘diet’ consists largely of premier cru, then that village level burg that I find amazing may be unlikely to provoke the same response from you.

The scoring is also unhelpful as everyone’s scale is different. I’ve seen wines with glowing reviews and a mid-80s score.

[Polymer]

I actually read both of those notes and felt they were consistent...Their conclusion was different but that's because people have different opinions about wine...

Drinking window is just an opinion..what one person thinks is past its peak might be someone's just entering their peak which might be someone's this is 5 years from entering its peak...

To me this sounds like a maturing Hunter Shiraz...probably wasn't terribly ripe or big to begin with..and the fruit that goes into this is fairly lowish end (Tyrrells wise anyways). It is a good benchmark wine for the rest of their range though. 14 years from vintage...There is likely to be more savory notes given the quality level of the fruit....for people that like younger wines, this wine would feel thin and acidity..for people that like aged wines, this is probably drinking fairly well..it might not have a bit more of the oomph..but given its humble beginnings, it is probably in a good spot (Savory, earthy, acid driven) if you like when wines get like that.....Both people's notes fit in here depending on their point of view.

In addition...if you really want to see where a person is coming from, you look at their other notes to see what styles they prefer...that often will explain why you think the notes are inconsistent....Looking at what regions they drink from or the style of wine they seem to prefer can often clue you in (at least somewhat) where they're coming from....Someone that loves really big big reds, them calling a wine thin can be both damning and a ringing endorsement....

And of course there is bottle variation as well....

[GraemeG]

Tyrrell corks.

Ha ha ha! Yes. That was my first thought about Tyrrells 98!

The advantage you may have with a TN from an unknown on CT is that you can go off and look at all their notes, perhaps finding a wine of common reference, and go from there.
One of the world's great wine resources in my view.
Graeme

[Mahmoud Ali]

I had not known that Tyrrell's were notorious for bad corks. As for trolling through a posters other reviews I did not know I could do that till recently and have only made the effort on a couple of occasions. It's not really my thing and I'm happy enough to accept or ignore reviews on its own terms. I agree Graeme that it is a useful resource and that one takes away from it what one wants. A number of times I have come away from a wien store with what I thought was a good wine from a known producer only to find that even in a younger vintage the reviews can be unhelpful. Anyway, I usually go with my gut and cellar it anyway.

The Brokenback Shiraz was an 'Individual Vineyard' back in 1998 so I'm not sure it was necessarily a lower grade wine back then but I'm certainly ready to be disabused of this notion. It was probably one of the reasons I decided to cellar it. I bought a pair and took it to a tasting as a back up but wasn't opened so it went into the cellar. I just checked Tyrrell's website and couldn't find it there so I have no idea what vineyard fruit went into the '98 let alone any subsequent vintages. Polymer, you are probably right in assuming it was a lowish end wine because it seems to be it may have been downgraded and eventually discontinued.

Mahmoud.

[Polymer]

I didn't know it was an individual back then (Is it?). I was always the impression this was put together from the different Tyrrells vineyards...(The good ones) but just not with the top tier fruit...which is why this was always a good benchmark wine for Tyrrells...

Either way, I think the point is, even notes that sound different can provide a lot of information on the wine and be consistent...just not in the way we think of consistency....

[Mahmoud Ali]

You may be right Polymer as the phrase is "Individual Vineyards" which is a plural. I don't know what the back label states because I haven't got my hand on the bottle but here is the label from Cellartracker which here looks a bit too white from what I recall but that may well be lighting and also different labels for different markets.

Tyrrell'sBrokenback Shiraz1998.jpg

It is worth noting that none of the other pictures in Cellartracker, from later vintages, uses the word vineyards on the front label, a clear difference from the 1998 label. Interestingly the back label of the 2009 refers to the Brokenback as "THE 'BABY BROTHER' TO OUR FLAGSHIP VAT 9." Make of it what you will.

Isn't wine fun? It's a constant exploration.

Mahmoud.

[Redav]

Isn't wine fun? It's a constant exploration.

If it's anything like what I experience at work, it's consistently inconsistent

[paulf]

I kind of like the differing opinions that you get on cellar tracker. It isn't that different to what you need to do with professional critics... Find one that suits your palate. I certainly see people's names pop up on different wines I own, and after you've seen a few from the same person you definitely get a sense of where they are at.
There is that saying too, about "no great old wines, only great bottles" that has been touched on with the corks. The other thing I wish people would put more, is whether they decanted, how long for, and what were the differences over the period the wine was consumed. Sometimes that can make a big difference.

[Mahmoud Ali]

... The other thing I wish people would put more, is whether they decanted, how long for, and what were the differences over the period the wine was consumed. Sometimes that can make a big difference.

Agreed, it would be useful indeed.

[Mahmoud Ali]

I decided to look up Jeremy Oliver regarding Tyrrell's Brokenback. In both his 2001 and 2002 guide he lists the wine as "Brokenback Shiraz". The 2001 guide is up-to-date with the 1997 vintage while the 2002 guide is up-to-date with the 1999 vintage but skips over 1998. Then, in the 2003 guide, he lists the wine as "Reserve Brokenback Shiraz". It still ends with the 1999 vintage but now includes the 1998 vintage with a 17.0 score and a drinking window of 2006 to 2010. Odd isn't it?

Now fast forward to Oliver's 2016 guide and he is back to calling it "Brokenback Shiraz" and STILL has the 1998 vintage listed but with an updated score of 90 points and the same drinking window.

I'm scratching my head wondering about the use of the word "Reserve" and can't help wondering whether the 1998 was a considered a reserve wine or perhaps there were two different bottlings of the Brokenback.

[GraemeG]

I think sometimes Tyrrells released a wine under a given name, then years later a 'cellar-release' was labelled as 'Reserve'. Don't think it was actually a different wine though. That certainly seemed to be the case with the Belford semillon, for instance. Vat 1 & 9 would occasionally be labelled 'Aged Release.' All very confusing.
Still, it matches their label graphics as well, so there's a certain consistency in the confusion. 4 Acres has only been around for a decade or so and has had, what, four different labels in that time?
Graeme

[Mahmoud Ali]

Graeme,

I think you are correct about the cellar release angle. It also triggered a memory and I did what I should have done before, check the Auswine forum archives. Look what I found from back in 2014 (5 years ago!!):

As for the Tyrrells Brokenback wine, from what I recall looking up their website a few years ago, I saw no reference to the Brokenback being from a single vineyard. In fact I did see a reference to a Brokenback "reserve" wine. Curious about my bottle of '98 Brokenback I wrote Tyrrell's asking them if there were two different wines, a regular and a reserve, but didn't get a satisfactory answer. So I don't know if the Brokenback was called a reserve at some point or whether they made a reserve in some years.

Just so you don't think I have no memory at all (definitely fading though) it had occured to me that I had written to Tyrrell's but try as I might I just couldn't find it when I did a search of my e-mails. In hindsight I obviously should have relied on the Auswine forum instead.

Also in that thread Polymer, you had this to say when mention was made that poor vintages of 4 Acres might be going into the Old Winery line:

I think last time 4 Acres wasn't made they added it to Brokenback...

The thread then went on to discuss Tyrrell's old Vat wines, in particular the now obsolete Vat 11 'Baulkham' Shiraz. Chris Tyrrell wrote this about the Baulkham Vineyard:

HI guys,

The Baulkham vineyard sits up above of the Short Flat vineyard, it is the next little ridge north of the winery. Over the years consistency was always the issue with this vineyard/wine. as part of the revamp of the mid 2000's we stopped making it on it's own as it simply wasn't good enough.
In the last couple of years after years of work it has bounced back a little bit but certainly is nowhere near Vat 9 level. Stylistically, baulkham is always bigger and tougher and I wouldn't even consider it for Vat 9.
At best it might be Vat 8, and other years (mostly) it goes into Brokenback.
Hope that helps.
Chris Tyrrell

Fascinating stuff for wine buffs. Or shoould that be wine nerds?

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

[Ozzie W]

I kind of like the differing opinions that you get on cellar tracker. It isn't that different to what you need to do with professional critics.

+1

Professional wine critics no different to CellarTracker when it comes to consistency. Sometimes they're all over the place. An example I keep on coming back to is the 2011 Graillot Syrah:

James Halliday 97
Campbell Mattinson 89
Huon Hooke 85

[phillisc]

I kind of like the differing opinions that you get on cellar tracker. It isn't that different to what you need to do with professional critics.

+1

Professional wine critics no different to CellarTracker when it comes to consistency. Sometimes they're all over the place. An example I keep on coming back to is the 2011 Graillot Syrah:

James Halliday 97
Campbell Mattinson 89
Huon Hooke 85

I don't use cellar tracker, I largely rely on memory, or my own scratching's over the years, which I know is a bad thing. That said, some wines are indelibly stamped on the grey matter.

Ozzie your point re scores is not dissimilar to wine show judges, always amazed that the same wine, even within the same show (happened last week) can have a point score variation between receiving a gold in one class and a bronze in another, or a trophy in another show or a score in the 80s. Independent assessment is one thing, but fatigue, conflict and potential bias is another.

However, opinion and ratings are largely irrelevant, many of the wines that I purchase annually are not influenced by reviews, points or awards, as these metrics don't feature.
A number of buys have been based purely on what I read here from fellow Auswiners, often some excellent recommendations forthcoming.

Cheers
Craig

[Ozzie W]

Some observations regarding CellarTracker reviewers/reviews:

• May not have wine tasting experience.
• May not be independent.
• May allow their opinion to be influenced by the opinion of others (groupthink).
• May be tasting the label, not the wine.
• Over use of 90 point scores at the expense of 89 point scores.
• Scores are generally lower than that of professional reviewers.

Despite these issues (some also apply to professional wine critics), I'm a huge fan of CellarTracker tasting notes. Filtering out the unreliable reviewers is easier than you think. Rather than having to remember all the reviewers I don't trust, there's actually a 'block user' feature available to exclude these reviewers from the tasting notes I see.

[img]https://i.postimg.cc/qRhC06jb/CT-Block-User.png[/img]

[GraemeG]

Actually, I am wrong about the 4 Acres label; there's only been one. But Vat 9 has had at least four iterations of labelling in the last 15 or so years.
Graeme

[Mahmoud Ali]

Graeme,

Might there be a difference in labels of the Vat 9 based on the time of release. I don't know if they still do it but Tyrrell's used to offer the current release Vat 9, among others, at a lower price for a limited time, then offering the same vintage at a later date to the retail trade at a considerable premium. I have a feeling that the labels might be different but I don't really know for sure.

Mahmoud.