TN: Rosemount Balmoral Syrah 2012

[Waiters Friend]

Decanted a couple of hours before service. Dense deep purple in colour.

Rich and intense nose, with blueberries, dark plums, vanilla, chocolate, and a touch of leather. The palate is showing lots of licorice, a little iodine, alongside ripe fruits and a little Christmas cake. Tannins are chunky and grippy, with acid in a supporting role. The finish is a little hot, and quite long.

I'm not sure where this is in its evolution. There's a lot of primary characters, and it is only the touch of leather that indicates any development at all. Possibly opened 10 years too early? Anyway, probably a little too big for me.

Cheers
Allan

[JamieBahrain]

Saw these coming up at auction lately.

Balmoral. Nice label but who could ever define the style?

[phillisc]

Saw these coming up at auction lately.

Balmoral. Nice label but who could ever define the style?

Used to be a good buy at $20 or under. 97 and 98s were very nice wines. Was once a MV marque, but not now. Another bastardisation of a once proud label.
Cheers Craig

[JamieBahrain]

C’mon $20 or under ? That’s a quaffing wine and not a premium! It was a shamed and discounted label in the end because the wine was not worth the money it commanded.

[phillisc]

C’mon $20 or under ? That’s a quaffing wine and not a premium! It was a shamed and discounted label in the end because the wine was not worth the money it commanded.

[Mahmoud Ali]

Used to be a good buy at $20 or under. 97 and 98s were very nice wines. Was once a MV marque, but not now. Another bastardisation of a once proud label.

C’mon $20 or under ? That’s a quaffing wine and not a premium! It was a shamed and discounted label in the end because the wine was not worth the money it commanded.

I don't believe that the average punter, back in the late 90's, would consider a $20 wine as a quaffing wine. It's hard not to get the impression that there is an element of wine snobbery in the statement but perhaps I have misunderstood it.

Mahmoud.

PS: Ironically, C$20 is exactly what I paid for my 2002 Balmoral Syrahs.

[JamieBahrain]

What an interesting thread that could be. Wine snobbery versus wine cheapskatery.

Ignoring international pricing, for often dumped labels which can see distorted pricing, when was Balmoral under $20 RRP?

[phillisc]

I remember about 15 years ago getting a mixed case of 97/98s when Fosters/Southcorp didn't know what to do with the brand...if I recall correctly diamond shape punt at the base of the bottle in the cheaper range didn't help either.
There was an independent in Adelaide's eastern suburbs, right where a big box retailer sits now who was quitting the wine at $20...again about 15 years ago. Think it was a 2000 vintage??, drank them not long after purchase, good dinner party wines to introduce to friends who thought they were much more expensive than they were
Cheers Craig

[GraemeG]

After the merger there was one vintage that they discounted the hell out of - and that was because it was crap. Seem to remember tasting a bottle that my father-in-law had very proudly purchased for such a cheap price. That would have been $twenty-something, early 2000s. I'll go look it up. 2002 vintage? I don't recall seeing the wine after that, ever, really!

[JamieBahrain]

RRP in 2010 onwards $75.

If you look at the old Nick’s wine site too, you get an idea of full retail pricing. Which in the case of Balmoral was far more than ambitious!

Was a very good wine early 90’s. I think 96 was dreary and it started appearing on the secondary market quite cheaply. Then the label was cruelled by corporates and yep, started turning up for quaffing prices. This finally killing it off as a premium or flagship. There seems a few attempts to resurrect the label which failed

[Chuck]

Rosemount did a reverse takeover of Penfolds a couple of decades ago and corporatised the label and its wines. That was near the end of my buying of pennies. A loaves and fishes trick. From memory Penfolds wrote down the value of the Rosemount label from the original purchase price of $1.1bn to around $250bn. The Rosemount installed CEO (Sandy someone who was Bob Oatley's son-in-law) was sack by Bob. You could here the cheering from all quarters.

[JamieBahrain]

. Rosemount Balmoral Syrah
JO
Just five years ago Rosemount Estate released the first vintage of its premium South Australian shiraz, the 1989 McLaren Vale Show Syrah. It took a year and a half to sell out. Two years later, having won two trophies and five gold medals, the 1991 vintage of the same wine sold out in three months, priced around $18 per bottle. The 1995 vintage, the fourth to sport the Balmoral Syrah label, is destined for release in November this year for around $45 per bottle. It will probably sell out in weeks.

Everything about the Balmoral Syrah appears to have fallen neatly into place. From Rosemount’s secure access to low-yielding old vine vineyards located largely around Blewitt Springs and McLaren Flat to the confident way that Philip Shaw handles a range of fermentation techniques and selects 100 brand-new American oak for maturation. From the label’s consistent success in Australian and international wine shows to the response it achieves in the international wine press. From its package and presentation to the upward trend shown by its retail price. A star is not so much born as it is nurtured through infancy to maturity.

Throughout the mid 1980s the major market for Rosemount’s Diamond Label Shiraz was the US. Rosemount’s American distributors told Philip Shaw that if he could create an ultra-premium show reserve wine, they could easily sell it. Created and named for the Francophilic US market, the Show Syrah 1989 was the result. Later, to the chagrin of their US agents, Rosemount decided to make the wine available in the UK and Australia as well. Just as well, if you ask me.

With no press, no promotion, no track record and no provenance, the 1989 was a hard sell. Today it’s clearly the most ready of the Balmorals/Show Syrahs to drink, the outcome of a hot, dry season that later turned cool. A highly evolved and assertive wine evocative of wild berries, mushrooms, coffee and treacle, it’s wonderfully smooth and spicy, with meaty/leathery complexity and a hint of aldehyde. I rate it at 18.0 and suggest that any bottles remaining be uncorked over the next five years.

Outcome of one of the hottest recent seasons, the 1990 Show Syrah has southern Rhone-ish pretensions. A robust, concentrated wine whose deep flavours of pepper, cassis and black cherry fruit are matched with the sweet leather of bottle-age and slightly varnishy oak, it makes up in power what it might lack in sophistication. That said, it’s a long-term wine suited to at least another five years of development. I score it 18.5.

For mine still the most impressive wine of this dual lineage, the 1991 Show Syrah is an incredibly deeply flavoured, sumptuously structured and concentrated wine still able to appear elegant and refined despite its sheer magnitude. Bursting with dark cherries and plums, flaunting its tarry, treacly bottle-aged complexity, it finishes savoury with a remarkable length of silky-smooth and tight-knit tannins. Wonderfully balanced, it does what few modern Australian wines can do. I rate it at 19.3 and wonder how on earth it only won two trophies. Its triumph at the International Wine Challenge as the winner of the trophy for the Best Rhone Style Red confirmed Rosemount’s decision to fashion an international brand from its premium McLaren Vale shiraz. Months of searching for a name then began and eventually out popped the answer: Balmoral, the name of one of the Oatley family’s estates in the Upper Hunter, built in 1852 by the same Scot who named another of his properties ‘Roxburgh’.

The cool, late and mild 1992 vintage produced the first Balmoral, a wine startlingly more refined and elegant from those from warmer years which preceded it. Velvet-smooth and elegant, this wine is now revealing a sufficient concentration of fruit to match its assertive chocolate and creamy oak. Multi-layered in its expression of finely-honed earthy, varietal and oak-driven characters, supremely harmonious and integrated, it will develop for at least a decade on its balance alone. Wonderful stuff, a great debut for a new prestige label and worth every mark of the 19.0 I give it.

From the most difficult year the series has experienced, 1993’s wine is beginning to resemble a leafier version of the 1989. A cool, wet spring and rainfall in early summer helped fashion a brambly, peppery and more herbaceous wine with intense confection-like flavours of beetroot, raspberries and cherries. More restrained and supple than other Balmorals, its tannins still reveal a slightly green edge and its oak is a little more assertive than those of superior balance. I point it at 17.7 and suggest it be given another four years.

Beginning with a warm spring, but finishing cool and dry towards the season’s end, 1994 produced a Balmoral fashioned along very similar lines to the 1992. Typically fine-grained, supple and supremely elegant, this wine is now coming out of its shell to reveal highly-spiced raspberry and cherry fruit now able to match its smoky, mocha oak qualities. High-toned acids and fine tannins will ensure a cellar life of at least another eight to ten years. I rate the wine 18.8.

1995 was a drought season, but another cool one. Still closed and biding its time, this is one of the best South Australian 1995 reds I have tasted, deeply spiced with chocolate and smoky cigarbox oak, soaked in dark cherries and plums. Elegant, smooth yet assertive enough, the wine lacks the length of its predecessors on the palate and finishes with a slight sappiness. Time will tell if it outgrows these youthful imbalances, but I am happy to award the wine 18.2 in the meantime, with the suggestion that it be matured for another six and ten years.

Philip Shaw makes between 2,000 and 2,500 cases of Balmoral Syrah each year. His approach to its making has been remarkably consistent since the wine’s inception, allowing the vintage to set the variations about the theme. The wines are made with a hot 30?C fermentation in both open fermenters and vinomatics, before the vinomatic component is allowed to remain on skins for between one and two weeks. The other finishes its fermentation in oak. The 1989 and 1990 vintages were given eighteen months in new American oak, medium to high toast. 1991 and 1992 received twenty-four months, while those since have received twenty. The vines for Balmoral are between 50 and 100 years of age, cropping an average of between 1.5 to 2.5 tonnes per acre.

Will Balmoral become an international benchmark? I honestly think so. Balmoral looks like it really has its bases covered.

[Mahmoud Ali]

What an interesting thread that could be. Wine snobbery versus wine cheapskatery.

Fortunately most people on this forum aren't in either camp.

[phillisc]

Get where you are coming from Mahmoud...but we could have a million posts on wine cheapskatery.
I'd like to think I make it an artform .

I don't have the cashola or pedigree to engage (much less purchase) in the winesnobbery sphere...I'll leave that to others who think or have the greatest labels and the greatest cellars.

I love a bargain or mates rates of 50% or more

Cheers Craig

[Sean]

deleted

[Rory]

I had quite a few of the Mountain Blue and Balmoral through to 90's. Really good wines.

[Mahmoud Ali]

Get where you are coming from Mahmoud...but we could have a million posts on wine cheapskatery.
I'd like to think I make it an artform .

I don't have the cashola or pedigree to engage (much less purchase) in the winesnobbery sphere...I'll leave that to others who think or have the greatest labels and the greatest cellars.

I love a bargain or mates rates of 50% or more

I think you do yourself a disservice Craig. Finding a bargain is not being cheap, and indeed if done properly it is an art form. Some of my "poshest" wines were sale priced, sometimes at ludicrously low prices. In fact my 2002 Balmoral (not to suggest that it is a posh wine) was reduced in price by more than 50%.

As for Sean's point about the Rosemount's price correction I do recall being in Sydney when Dan Murphy had been selling the Traditional for about $10 a bottle. Also, once upon a time, didn't Wynn's halve the price of their Riddoch and Michael wines?

Mahmoud.

[JamieBahrain]

For many, perhaps blinded by the label, 2002 Balmoral was a bargain.

Even under $20 some of the former contributors to this Forum returned the wines! It was rubbish to them.

So if you bought the 2002 Balmoral are you a skilled wine buyer or just a wine cheapskate?

What a ripper of a thread - “2002 Balmoral is crap”

http://forum.auswine.com.au/viewtopic.php?f ... rap#p49003

I enjoyed many Balmorals from the 90’s. They started to appear in the late 90’s, discounted and as auction bargains. Smart money may have been ahead of the game? I did question one 90’s vintage though can not recall which. Perhaps so many similar styles exploded onto the scene from the Southern Vales?

[Alex F]

What a ripper of a thread - “2002 Balmoral is crap”

http://forum.auswine.com.au/viewtopic.php?f ... rap#p49003

Seems like the wine may have come up alright in the end?

https://www.cellartracker.com/m/wines/317099

[Chuck]

While we are on the subject of bagging Rosemount.... there were a couple of mentions above of the Rosemount Traditional. Won a JWT? This label was derived from the purchase of a very small MV winery - Ryecroft. The Ryecroft Traditional was an absolute ripper of a wine; Bordeaux blend and I recall buying it for around $8 when we had a couple of ankle biters (read poor). Then Rosemount rode in and continued the tradition until it became a loaves and fishes story. Grapes came from everywhere whereas the Ryecroft version was all MV fruit from a passionate small operator. The cellar door was crowded with 6 people in it. Almost like a kitchen if I recall correctly.

[phillisc]

While we are on the subject of bagging Rosemount.... there were a couple of mentions above of the Rosemount Traditional. Won a JWT? This label was derived from the purchase of a very small MV winery - Ryecroft. The Ryecroft Traditional was an absolute ripper of a wine; Bordeaux blend and I recall buying it for around $8 when we had a couple of ankle biters (read poor). Then Rosemount rode in and continued the tradition until it became a loaves and fishes story. Grapes came from everywhere whereas the Ryecroft version was all MV fruit from a passionate small operator. The cellar door was crowded with 6 people in it. Almost like a kitchen if I recall correctly.

And Chuck, weep at stories like that, and Seaview Glenloft cellars round the corner, sub $5 wines, with the seagull on the label and cute little map Of SA and the Vale...absolute crackers.

Cheers Craig

[Mahmoud Ali]

I think what people forget is that wines evolve over time and a good deal of what it will evolve into are merely educated guesses. Over the years I have found that the drinking windows by critics and reviewers are not in the least reliable. I recall reading some years ago about Bordeaux fanciers pulling out Robert Parker's book on Bordeaux during tastings to see how often he got something wrong he got things, either in his scoring or the drinking window. I myself experienced a 1976 Leoville-Poyferre which Parker gave 76 points, declared it soupy and thought it was in decline in the 80's. What a laugh, it was certainly no blockbuster but then again who wants a Bordeaux to be one.

Wines go through phases, often drinking well when young with fresh fruit, then closing down as the fruit fades but the secondary or tertiary elements have yet to appear, before morphing into something else. I remember reading a Wine Spectator article that looked at the aging process, asking top wine makers in Napa, Bordeaux, and others regions about when one should drink their wines. Almost universally they suggested a short drinking window for the fruit before the wine shut down for near to a decade or more before opening up again.I see no reason why the same might not be true of the Balmoral wines. They were made by Philip Shaw and I presume, like other reputable winemakers, he strove to make the best wine he could each and every year. Sometimes wines do not show early. As pointed out by Alex, the 2002 Balmoral is beginning to get favourable reviews in Cellar Tracker.

One of my favourite examples from Cellar Tracker is about the 1997 Villa Caffaggio Chianti Riserva. I bought a pair of them based on the vintage and the producer and promptly cellared them. In 2010 a CWEISS wrote:

"I've waited for this wine to come around, but I'm not sure it ever will. Seems to have core of fruit still but hard tannins and a metallic component make it a less than pleasant drink."

Then in 2014 the same person wrote:

"When first opened had an unpleasant metallic taste, and was going to pour it down the drain but decided to try it again the next day, when it was in fact much better. Flash forward about 10 days later, still in the refrigerator, and this 17 year old Chianti was very nice. Young-looking, gutsy with secondary fruit flavors and plenty of acidity, chewy tannins, and a little bit of metal that was now just a component adding some complexity. Perhaps I'll try another in a couple of years."

Most recently, in 2018, he said this:

"After waiting 20 years for this wine to be a good drink, it was very very good. It has always had dense ripe fruit, but the unpleasant metallic taste and cough syrup are gone. It is just starting to have attractive tertiary flavors. Plenty of structure remains but the tannins have resolved just enough. Drink or hold another 5 years."

Who knows what it will be like in another few years.

Just because some people panned a wine some years ago is no reason to think it is still the same wine. Cheapskete, sheepskate, if the wine turns out good then it becomes a bargain and the snob then looks the fool.

Mahmoud.

[JamieBahrain]

Seems like the wine may have come up alright in the end?

https://www.cellartracker.com/m/wines/317099

I took a quick look Alex. I’m ever so cautious with CT however, this is mostly attributed to using it as a tool to buy what’s often quirky Nebbiolo. Australian shiraz in Balmoral’s style far more predictable. So what I can gather from a few posts ( and I checked one contributors other reviews for generosity and gaging their drinking ) is Balmoral 2002 may have broke even as a Label gamble from a wine that had so many detractors ( I’d be breathing a sigh of relief ). So some may pat themselves on the back as bargain-basement buyers though there’s probably better cellars that put their money into emerging producers at the same price. $20-$25 dollars in 2004 say, would probably get you Marius, Oliver’s Taranga etc, Kay’s

Personally, 2002 McLaren Vale I bought Kay’s, Fox Creek & my favourite Coriole. Bit unimaginative though I was overseas at the time. I did spend a weekend up at Colin Kay’s guesthouse though touring yielded poor buying results.

[Mahmoud Ali]

Ooh, the cheapskates are now "bargain basement buyers" are they. That's fine by me as I managed to get, in the $20 - 25 range (notice the slight increase in the price range?) Grant Burge's 'Meshach' and Langmeil 'The Freedom', not to mention a whole case of Maison Leroy's Bourgogne for $120 - that's $10 a bottle. I am a self confessed bargain basement buyer, aka "cheapskate" and i like it that way. Go on, spend as much as you like if that's your thing.

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

PS: Oops, I forgot to mention that in the same price range I also managed to "cheapskate" my way to some Brokenwood 'Rayner' Shiraz and Te Mata 'Coleraine'. I am so embarrassed.

[Ian S]

You lucky cheapskate Mahmoud

we all prioritise our buying to suit our tastes and budget, so I'd no more criticise anyone for buying Torres Vina Sol, as I would anyone buying Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco

[JamieBahrain]

It’s as amusing as predictable. Throw around a wine snobbery comment and draw little response. However, wine cheapskatery, and so opens sanctimonious overflow of dribble. Offended as if a class division well removed from the rationale of wine lovers.

You don’t know what you don’t know I guess. My experience coming from a flourishing wine community sees an entirely different perspective and experience with wine collectors.

Going back to the offending comment. $20 was quaffing standard for most folks I know with a passion for wine ( average punter how irrelevant on a wine lover’s page ). Yep you could go lower. It was not however, where anyone at a corporate level aimed or expected their Balmoral to sit early this century.

[Mahmoud Ali]

Jamie,

I think you're over reacting a little. Let me put it in perspective as I see it. There would be no raised eyebrows had you said that you thought the Balmoral had the quality of a quaffing wine. However there is an element of snobbery when you suggest that the price level itself is the determinant of a quaffing wine. Leaving that aside posters went on to say that the price of the Balmoral, like some of the other wines mentioned, used to worth more and were arbitrarily lowered. That is when I think you, figuratively speaking, upped the ante to suggest that people who buy $20 wines are cheapskates.

There is plenty of room in the forum for stating one's opinion on any wine, regardless of price. However it is altogether different to say that the price itself determines the quality in the bottle. It suggests that had the Balmoral not been discounted by the people at Rosemount and remained at the $50 level it would no longer be a "quaffing wine". Quality resides in the bottle, not the price tag. And it is a bit much to accuse people of being "cheap" for buying a wine whose price dropped or were put on sale.

Look, I don't think you meant to offend anyone, and really I don't think you did. it's just that in trying to express your opinion about the quality of the Balmoral you may have overstated things. I'm sure you meant to say that the quality of the Balmoral slipped and at one point (or maybe even now) drinks like a quaffing wine. That is a fair opinion and I'm sure there are people who would agree with you.

Cheers .................. mahmoud.

[JamieBahrain]

I meant exactly what I wrote. If you hang out on wine forums and are offended at a reference to Balmoral at $20 being quaffing standards, in the context of expectations below, so be it. That’s reverse snobbery to me.



“Will Balmoral become an international benchmark? I honestly think so. Balmoral looks like it really has its bases covered.”

JO

[Alex F]

I meant exactly what I wrote. If you hang out on wine forums and are offended at a reference to Balmoral at $20 being quaffing standards, in the context of expectations below, so be it. That’s reverse snobbery to me.



“Will Balmoral become an international benchmark? I honestly think so. Balmoral looks like it really has its bases covered.”

JO

I wonder whether in 15 years we will refer to $50 wines of today as quaffing wines. I may be misremembering but weren't the Mount Pleasant Rosehill and OP'OH around $20 then, and I also seem to remember the O'shea 2000 priced at $30 at cellar door. How much were the other benchmarks around 2005? Things like 389 and Wendouree?

I would also mention another Mclaren Vale shiraz, the "cleanskin" Reynella Basket Press (2005 and 2006) vintages. I think these were sub $10 a bottle. Absolutely not 'quaffing' wines in my opinion.

For further interest, the Jimmy Watson Rosemount traditional seems to be a bipolar wine with a high average rating on cellartracker: https://www.cellartracker.com/wine.asp?iWine=1473494

[JamieBahrain]

As a wine lover, subscriber to wine magazines and vacationer in wine regions, $20 was often my quaffing standard. Anything less rarely delivered much of a buzz and yep I can understand those not as passionate about wine getting joy for much less or simply not caring.I recall many repeat case buys of Wynn’s Coonawarra twenty years ago where the wine brought interest and pleasure. It was often a mid-weeker, came to BBQ’s without fuss and I recall putting in for a case with friends for a Grand Final party. None was cellared ( I didn’t care enough for it ) however it delivered pleasure and comfortable drinking ie: it was quaffable! Yep there were other $20 wines I cellared but frankly, for every one of these ( your Mt Pleasant ) , many more I’d consider just simple and pleasurable drinking.

Not sure cleanskins a great example.

Now I find most sub-$20 Aussie wines not worth my liver cells I get more pleasure from an AFD. After living in Hong Kong where under $20 gets you great quaffing, I’ve yet to find a comfort zone in difficult Australia.

389 and Henschke Keyneton were my quaffing and cellaring standard in the early 90’s for the $20 and slightly under mark. Guzzled and quaffed many, many cases!