Hello All,
Steve and Jono came over on Friday night (27/05/2005) with stir fried noodles and 4 bottles of wine in hand: 2 red Burgundies, a 2000 Best's Bin O Shiraz and a 1994 Seppelt Drumborg Cabernet Sauvignon. The noodles were alright. The wines tasted over the course of the evening wereÂ…
To entertain ourselves whilst eating:
1995 Brokenwood “Cricket Pitch†Sauvignon Blanc / Semillon – Hunter Valley, NSW – 13%
As expected, this was not going to be great. Interestingly, this wine has developed into deep and smooth nothingness with a hint of orange. After a few drops each, the bottle was poured down the sink.
2002 Oakridge Chardonnay - Yarra Valley
Excellent cool-climate, nectarine and melon-driven Chardonnay with oak supporting well but in the background. Very good vibrancy from excellently integrated fine acid. A joy to drink now but will age. 17.5/20, 91/100.
Now to the main event:
1993 Louis Latour “Corton†Grand Cru (Red) – Corton, Côte de Beaune - 14%
This wine showed the quality of the 1993 vintage. This wine is slender, long and full of minerals and stones with hints of raspberry. Beautiful. Its very fine tannins had great presence proving exceptional line and length. It continued to open up over the evening and, as happens with great wines, the last glass was the best. I had this wine over year ago and interestingly, this previous bottle was more silky and with more obvious depth and was also wonderful, but this eveningÂ’s bottle was more profound. I believe Steve paid around $90 for this wine and I would have no hesitation in purchasing a couple bottles myself. Great value. 18.7/20, 95/100.
1997 Bouchard Pere & Fils “Vigne de L’enfant†Premier Cru (Red) – Les Grèves, Côte de Beaune – 13.5%
More ripe depth on the front palate with more obvious berry fruit amongst darker minerality but did not have the length or the harmony of the previous wine. The finish ended very, very slightly sour. Nonetheless, it was a complex and enjoyable wine that maybe some New World drinkers would find more appealing than I. Steve mentioned that this was more expensive than the previous wineÂ… and that is Burgundy! 17.2/20, 90/100.
2003 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz – Hunter Valley, NSW – 13.5%
This is the 5th bottle I have opened of this wine and finally it has shown as well as my first. Bottle #2 opened at an offline in Adelaide was alright while #3 and #4 were quite ordinary. This was dark, ripe and lush with great depth, although not a SA inky beast, with hints of liquorice and leather well in the background. Jono, to his credit, picked it as a Victorian Shiraz. The tannins were like soft cushions, so much so that I am not sure whether age would make this wine more enjoyable although it would obviously be able to take a decade of age without issue. A sumptuous wine with great control and focus. 18.2/20, 93/100.
Not wanting to open another of SteveÂ’s wines yet, I found a bottle of the following wine lying around:
1998 Orlando St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon – Coonawarra – 13%
After decanting and swirling, this wine showed to be a textbook Coonawarra cabernet: Deep cassis, faint touches of green herbs and capsicum and with good length. However, it was so textbook that it was totally boring. This was due to there being little integration of the wines components. After 20 minutes of discussion, it was decided to put the rest of this wine back in the bottle and go to something else. Life, and more particularly this evening, is too short to meditate over this wine.
As I think more about this wine, I realise that it showed very similar to a bottle of 1999 Parker First Growth that Dig and Ginger presented at an offline last year. Fortunately I was able to drink the remaining portion the following night and was quite pleased with the outcome. It also provides me with greater faith in the 1999 Parker First Growth.
The St HugoÂ’s structure had opened up to provide a great base for all the wineÂ’s components to integration, as well as giving a fine, slightly chalky feel to the whole palate that was quite marvellous. This wine really needs another 5 years, at the very least, to be in its drinking plateau. 18.5/20, 94/100.
So back to SteveÂ’s bag of wines, and in fact, this was JonoÂ’s contribution:
1994 Seppelt Drumborg Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon – Henty, Victoria – 13%
Interestingly JH gives this wine 91/100 while JO gives it 80/100 (14.5/20). I definitely agreed more with JH but understand why an 80/100 rating might be given to the wine. Well, maybe not that low. This wine had an excellent core of deep cassis of youthful vibrancy. It seems more 4 years old than 11. However, there were immense amounts of dried green herbs of many varieties, cigar and some cedar. All three of us this evening found it to be a wonderful wine. Complex and profound, very obviously cold climate, but with no holes or lacking of depth. Tannins were powerful and fine. I was wondering whether I would pick it as Australian or Bordeaux had I tasted it blind. Either way, I would have been happy to buy this particular bottle for $50. Jono only paid $22. This wine will continue to benefit with age and would probably not reach its drinking window for another 5 years. 18.4/20, 94/100.
Despite the temptation to open the BestÂ’s Bin 0, we had already watched an episode of The Young Ones, it was past 2am and our palates were starting to become a bit tired. I also had to be at a friends place at 8:30am to help move houseÂ… and wasnÂ’t that a fun 6 hours.
Kind regards,
Adair
2xBeaune/03Vat9/98StHugo/94SeppeltDrumborgCS/02OakridgeChard
1994 Drumborg
Addair ,I'm glad you enjoyed this wine as much as we did, but as I mentioned in my earlier post I sometimes find that the strong vegital aromas that sometimes accompany cool climate cabernet can detract from the wine, as it overshadows the spice and choclate and prune and plums and all those other wonderful aromas that cabernet is famous for. I found you notes spot on.
Petros
Petros