TN: 2003 Barossa Shiraz Masterclass

[Wizz]

On Friday night I attended an 03 Barossa Shiraz Masterclass at Wineaway in Brisbane, MC'd by Wayne and Brenda Dutschke. This was essentially the launch of Wayne's 03 wines, and in a unique step, he chose to do this by comparing his wines to 10 of their siblings from the 03 vintage, many of which are yet to be released. Here is my impression of the night.

To Start:

03 Dutschke Willowbend: Warm, Chocolate and Plums. Cuddly, friendly, likeable, but not overly long, drink now.


And then, two flights of 6 each 03 Barossa Shiraz. Please note these are "world points", and may seem low to some. To those who saw my scores on the night, I've rethought them a little and reduced them further. See my postscript on scoring also.

Flight 1: $30ish

Grant Burge Filsell: Muted nose, vanlla and red fruit. The same on the palate to start. Some plum, raspberry, blackberry, chocolate. Good mid palate, warm finish, just not that exciting. Drink soon. 83/100

Dutschke St Jakobi: Cherries, strawberry and some chocolate, and some animal smells: quite closed. More elegant even than the Filsell. Warm palate of good length, some VA, more savoury than fruity. Perhaps a light touch of brett? Wayne spotted brett in other wines on the night but didnÂ’t mention it here. Perhaps I'm mistaken. Hard wine to call, particularly in the company of the next wine. 85/100, potential to improve

Schild Estate: OMG, this is incredibly ripe on the nose, porty and raisined, almost date like. The palate is similar, and almost metallic. Very little to like here. Pass. 79/100

Elderton: Turkish delight and rosepetal nose. Which became more blackberry like in time (sounds like grenache at this pointÂ…). Some also thought there was a touch of brett here. Vanilla and confectionery like plum palate, the underlying tannins and acid are quality. Lovely 86/100, potential to improve.

Kaesler Stonehorse: Ripe, blackberry and plums, with that trace of turkish delight here too. Plum and blackberry palate too, with some nicely judged oak. Good tannic backbone and length. 89/100 and could get better with a few years in bottle

Schultz Benjamin: Ripe, jubes and some brett here too. Lush texture the others havent had so far (and the ones that follow did not match either). Quite pruney, this is a relatively simple, ripe fruit bomb, although some fine tannin sweeps through in the finish. Too porty for me, but this is well made in this style. 88/100


Flight 2: $45ish

Dutschke Oscar Semmler: This started out red fruits and VA. The VA blew off quickly. Oaky spice and chocolate appeared next, and the fruit is again quite muted. The oak and tannin are there to build structure around this surprisingly elegant style, which shows good length. A bit of a puzzle here. Elegant, and the structure to keep. 90/100 potential to get better if the fruit opens out.

Burge Family Draycott: Savoury oak and thenÂ… band aids. The palate is a cracker: plum and chocolate well combined. Knockout fruit: ripe plum, licorice, dark berries, length, balance, lovely. Spoiled only by the bretty nose. Bugger. 89/100.

Charles Cimicky The Autograph: Used to be called the signature before Yalumba complained. Notably darker colour than most others. Plum and spice, some pepper on the nose too. Unusual for Barossa. Very Rhonish. Rich plummy palate, which is tight and tannic. Nice now, but some time will see it even better. Has won trophies apparently, donÂ’t know which ones. 90/100

Turkey Flat: Distinctively Turkey Flat: Berries, licorice, aniseed. Spicy, peppery notes with plummy richness. Chewy tannin supports through to the finish. Lovely drink. 90/100 and not along term keeper

Kaesler The Bogan: Tightly coiled, the nose on this is pretty exciting: not giving more than hints, but it is very suggestive indeed. Chocolate. Plums. Dense. Rich. Not sickly sweet like earlier vintages. Rich, viscous, heady luxurious. Heaps of everything. Balanced in its largeness. 91/100 and could get better. Martin C, If you donÂ’t have this, get some.

Torbreck The Struie: Dutch licorice, tar. Ripe jubes and prunes. Strangely elegant but still dense and packed and porty. Really not that interesting. 87/100


And to Finish:

Dutschke Sun Dried Shiraz: Split the crowd. A lot of VP character, but with some rich juicy sweetness in the mid palate. Kramer wine: love it or hate it. 88/100 (Ironically the Schild estate had a similar flavour profile, apart from the Brett!)

Dutschke The Tokay: Light and elegant, clean and simple. 86/100

Dutschke The Muscat: Nice: spicy complexity sprinkled all over the raisiny fruit. 91/100

Dutschke The Tawny: Caramel city in its oxidative, rancio way. 86/100

I cant for the life of me see how Parker gave the scores he did.

Conclusions on the tasting: Andrew Lincoln from Wineaway pointed out that the wines showed differently every night (the event was run three times this week). On the Friday night alone, I saw 4 other peoples scoresheets, and every one ranked the wines differently (although MartinE and I were pretty close), and every one used the 100 point scale differently. My ratings above are the lowest of the sets of scores I saw. Apparently the other ngihts also saw the wines ranked quite differently.

Conclusions on the Shiraz: Beware 03 Barossa. Definitely try before you buy. Tyson Stelzer did the 03 vintage and said the same at the time, 2 years of hindsight confirms his view. As the notes reflect, this lot vary from hideoously ripe and porty to quite elegant and closed. Brett was suggested on quite a few wines to different degrees. For coparison, last year I rated the 02 Dutschke's 4 or 5 points higher, and the 02 Filsell at about 90.

Kudos to Wayne Dutschke: This is a very brave thing to put your wines up against your competition like this. IMO they didnt show well, but this could well be th classic "show" problem, where the more elegant structured wines get buried by the fruit bombs.

Kudos to the other winemakers: for allowing Wayne to present their wines. There must be a lot of trust in Wayne to be fair in presenting these to allow him to do this.


Wines I'd buy:
Both Dutschkes, I reckon they will age and improve;
Both Kaeslers, well made fruit driven. the Bogan was a real surprise;
Turkey Flat, love the style, but not a ong term keeper at all;

and if I had cellar space:
Charles Cimicky, very nice wine;
Elderton, surprise. Never considered Elderton before.

The fortifieds are good, particularly the Muscat, but they struggle to compete against the likes of Seppelt range.

Cheers

Andrew

[TORB]

Andrew,

FWIW, I agree with most of your notes but like me, you are flat out wrong on the 03 Draycott! That bandaid on the nose is a characteristic of the wine. There is no Brett in this wine, Rick has had it tested.

The bloody thing fooled me completely too. Read all about it here
http://www.torbwine.com/index.htm?..//dropsndregs2.htm staring at "How Would You call It?" and then when you have read that, go back up the page and read "Flummoxed and Poleaxed" at the top.

[Wizz]

Andrew,

FWIW, I agree with most of your notes but like me, you are flat out wrong on the 03 Draycott! That bandaid on the nose is a characteristic of the wine. There is no Brett in this wine, Rick has had it tested.

The bloody thing fooled me completely too. Read all about it here
http://www.torbwine.com/index.htm?..//dropsndregs2.htm staring at "How Would You call It?" and then when you have read that, go back up the page and read "Flummoxed and Poleaxed" at the top.

How about that! I pointed the wine down for this too. Brett or not the character was offputting. Your note is interesting, ie that it blew off to be earth/mushrooms after a while.

I saw scores as low as 83 and as high as 94 for this wine, I guess everyone saw it differently.

Thx for pointing that out Ric,

Andrew

[MartinE]

Andrew,

FWIW, I agree with most of your notes but like me, you are flat out wrong on the 03 Draycott! That bandaid on the nose is a characteristic of the wine. There is no Brett in this wine, Rick has had it tested.

The bloody thing fooled me completely too. Read all about it here
http://www.torbwine.com/index.htm?..//dropsndregs2.htm staring at "How Would You call It?" and then when you have read that, go back up the page and read "Flummoxed and Poleaxed" at the top.

How about that! I pointed the wine down for this too. Brett or not the character was offputting. Your note is interesting, ie that it blew off to be earth/mushrooms after a while.

I saw scores as low as 83 and as high as 94 for this wine, I guess everyone saw it differently.

Thx for pointing that out Ric,

Andrew

I pointed it 92-94, didn't get any brett and called it "muted but classy, elegant"...I liked it a lot.

M.

[JohnP]

. . .
Dutschke Sun Dried Shiraz: Split the crowd. A lot of VP character, but with some rich juicy sweetness in the mid palate. Kramer wine: love it or hate it. 88/100 (Ironically the Schild estate had a similar flavour profile, apart from the Brett!)
. . .
Cheers

Andrew

I think the interesting thing with this wine is the use of neutral spirit to fortify the wine which allows the fruit sweetness to come to the fore, in comparison to a brandy spirit fortified wine that tends to hide fruit sweetness behind the heat and sweetness of obvious alchol. It is an interesting exercise to taste fortifieds from fully neutral spirit (Dutschke) to fully brandy spirit (say MV Marion from Rockfords) the differences are really very obvious.

On the night Wayne commented that he had two barrels of this wine, both very different and that the blending of the two had reduced some of the power and complexity. I know that the barrel sample I had in December was a knock out wine.

[MartinE]

. . .
Dutschke Sun Dried Shiraz: Split the crowd. A lot of VP character, but with some rich juicy sweetness in the mid palate. Kramer wine: love it or hate it. 88/100 (Ironically the Schild estate had a similar flavour profile, apart from the Brett!)
. . .
Cheers

Andrew

I think the interesting thing with this wine is the use of neutral spirit to fortify the wine which allows the fruit sweetness to come to the fore, in comparison to a brandy spirit fortified wine that tends to hide fruit sweetness behind the heat and sweetness of obvious alchol. It is an interesting exercise to taste fortifieds from fully neutral spirit (Dutschke) to fully brandy spirit (say MV Marion from Rockfords) the differences are really very obvious.

On the night Wayne commented that he had two barrels of this wine, both very different and that the blending of the two had reduced some of the power and complexity. I know that the barrel sample I had in December was a knock out wine.

Hi John,

You mentioned the neutral spirit at the time and I agree on "interesting" but I just hated the eucalyptus and tea-leaf nose which I assume was part of that. Overall it lacked the power on the palate that I'm looking for from a topline fortified.

Cheers,

M.

[KMP]

. . .
Dutschke Sun Dried Shiraz: Split the crowd. A lot of VP character, but with some rich juicy sweetness in the mid palate. Kramer wine: love it or hate it. 88/100 (Ironically the Schild estate had a similar flavour profile, apart from the Brett!)
. . .
Cheers

Andrew

I think the interesting thing with this wine is the use of neutral spirit to fortify the wine which allows the fruit sweetness to come to the fore, in comparison to a brandy spirit fortified wine that tends to hide fruit sweetness behind the heat and sweetness of obvious alchol. It is an interesting exercise to taste fortifieds from fully neutral spirit (Dutschke) to fully brandy spirit (say MV Marion from Rockfords) the differences are really very obvious.

On the night Wayne commented that he had two barrels of this wine, both very different and that the blending of the two had reduced some of the power and complexity. I know that the barrel sample I had in December was a knock out wine.

There are two barrels? I thought there was only one? The TN I have for the fortified Shiraz we tasted is "the most interesting barrel sample was the 2003 Fortified Shiraz. Almost black, it had a strong blackberry jam character and reminded me of a young vintage port. But it was like velvet on the palate with the neutral alcohol spirit not intruding at all. Extremely well balanced, it had a wonderfully long finish. "

Mike