The Auswine Forum

Hi Good Peoples,

Its that time of the week again. Please let us know what you have been drinking...... Tasting notes, vibes, impressions and lists all welcome.

2009 Blue Poles Viognier- more structured than 07, the restraint and complexity is still beguiling. Bit more honeysuckle, less white flowers. Apricot flavours there, but once again not hogging the stage, allowing for just less than ripe nectarine and ginger etc to play their parts better. Tangy and refreshing. Another Blue Poles Viognier to help me push my "Viognier can make excellent wine" argument. I seriously cannot have enough of this stuff in the fridge.

2007 Blue Poles Reserve Margaret River- Difficult wine for me to put into words. Tannins, structure and red fruit seem to be the most important things to note, along with fantastic and well judged oak and long finish. Great clarity and lithe in the mouth. Even better on 2nd day, with integration of flavours and oak, some classy graphite/coal notes and a hint of chocolate. It's a serious and complex wine (for a fairly ridiculously small amount of money) that I can't wait to taste again when it hits its window. I'll buy more, I'm not doing it justice.

2008 Battle of Bosworth Sauvignon Blanc- my girlfriend bought this and she liked it. We both thought it was sourish, she liked that more than me. To me, flat and unconvincing, lacking zip. My first Savy from McLaren. Not so sure here.

2008 Frecyinet Louis Chardonnay- the first Chardonnay my GF has ever enjoyed. Unwooded, good acid and citrus dominant. Apparently it sells very well. It's uncomplicated but not dumb. Thumbs up from me.

Stefano Lubiana 2003 Sparkling- Tasty, some nice weight without being heavy. Hazlenuts and nougat, excellent dosage. Autolysis pleasently present. Long. Love Lubiana Sparkling at all levels.

Yesterday I went to an instore & tried the lastest Wynns Coonawarra Estate releases; all of the following wines apart from the bubbles were under screwcap:

2004 Coldstream Hills Sparkling Pinot Noir Chardonnay: Medium straw colour with a good mousse & fine bead. Lovely bready/yeasty characters matched to crisp stonefruit and a long, creamy finish, the only blot on the copybook is it seems to be missing something on the front-palate.

2008 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Riesling: Pale straw colour. Tropical, sweet banana and grassy characters with some nice minerality, but it’s relatively bland and a short-term drinker at best.

2008 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Chardonnay: Pale straw colour. Another boring wine, medium-weight melony fruit matched with medium impact sweet oak, made for short term quaffing but no great qualities really stand out.

2008 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Shiraz: Bright, medium purple/red colour. The nose is very attractive with bright raspberry/cherry and vanilla, not dissimilar to the Mike Press in some regards; the palate’s medium-weight at best with the same cherry/vanilla characters and a solid finish. An improvement over the last few vintages, but still nothing like the bang-for-buck wine it used to be…

2007 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz Merlot: Green/earthy cassis and ash characters on the nose; the palate’s again medium-weight at most, and finishes with remarkably ugly, bitter green tannins. Awful wine.

2007 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon: There’s immediate similarities to the previous vintage release: a solid red-purple colour, with a step up in fruit and oak to both the red stripe blend and Shiraz. It’s earthy with blackcurrant/black cherry and slightly gravelly tannins, the vanillin oak more obvious but not OTT, finishing with a lick of black olive and just a touch of greenness (but nowhere near the extent of the red stripe). A solid result for a difficult, frost affected vintage, but it will never be one of the greats either.

2006 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Alex 88 Cabernet Sauvignon: In recent years the individual vineyard wines have often been the most interesting wines of the new releases, and occasionally the best value – sourced from vines planted in 1988 on the old Alexander’s block, this is one of the best of them. A deep purple red colour, and an equally deep nose of earthy blackcurrant/blackberry with a lick of chocolate, backed by spicy, sympathetic French oak. The palate’s still only medium-weight yet feels like it has more substance than the standard black label, it’s velvety, slightly chocolaty and extremely long with very fine tannins.

2006 Wynns Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Cabernet Sauvignon: The colour actually looked to be lighter/less purple than the Alex 88, although the pours were small which may have distorted this. The blackcurrant/blackberry on the attractive, complex bouquet is lifted by sweet, toasty oak and just a whiff of formic acid, jus and tobacco; the palate’s brawny, with powerful fruit and mouthfilling, chalky tannins, the finish extremely long but marred by a touch of green bitterness on the very end. There’s so many good things going on here and I love its huge, chalky structure, yet that finish has cast a serious doubt in my mind.

Cheers,
Ian

Hi Ian,

Had a look at the Wynn's wines as well and my impression of them was very similar to yours albeit a lot simpler I bet

Only difference was I didn't pick up the green bitter finish on the JR after the wall of tannins. Well that and that I preferred the riesling to the chardonnay but that isn't important Wasn't the Alex interesting!

cheers

Carl

+ 1 for the Alex being good stuff, and very interesting

Just noticed TORB's title after posting - Middle Sunday in May???

2005 Craigow Reisling now well developed, rich and unctious, colour golden green hue. Lime marmalade, almost spicey nose. Nice refreshing wine.

2007 Drew Pinot Noir mid light colour and palate. More plum spectrum than cherry. Nice musky complexity .

2007 Barringwood Pinot Noir The last bottle of this seemd fuller and richer, this less so. still quite nice but probably needs more time to fill out and discover some complexity. previous vintages of this wine have been much much fuller. Almost a change stylistically by the maker?

2001 Seppelts St Peters Shiraz If your going to open one of these, give it plenty of air time. It took a while to get it to respond, needed some vigorous decanting to get it to open up. Good palate weight, nice peppery musky complexity, fragrant. interesting comparison between this and the same vintage Chalambar, which is singing its pretty song now. wouldn't approach for another 2-3 yrs.

Ian, thanks for the Wynns notes. That red stripe wine never does anything for me. It seems that it 'should' be a better wine but it's never better than bog-standard, if not poor, based on my experience. Don't know much about it's history; ie. if it was once a solid, dependable wine...

Anyway, for me, a few bits and pieces, the most 'memorable' of which were:

Two Hands Gnarly Dudes Shiraz 2008
So young, so sweet, awash with vanilla and icing sugar and a fair bit of obvious oak. Too cloying for me but would have it's appeal.

Church Road Reserve Chardonnay 2006
Auction pick up and very happy indeed, for a pretty good price. Peach, banana nuts, honey and subtle oakiness with a lovely textural mouthfeel and finish. Classy.

A weekend of budget drinking for me:

1999 Xanadu Cow Rock Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon- Another Heritage wine, and I must say that this is my new favourite. At 10 years of age, there is the expected tertiary development, with the usual eucalypty fruit from this impressive Margaret River vintage. There a bit of caramel oak on the finish, on this barely medium bodied wine. Nice one

2007 St Cosme Cotes du Rhone- What struck me initially (well not literally ) was the heavy bottle which must add a great deal to the transport / environmental cost. That, plus the impressive cork that comes with a low end wine. Anyway, the wine itself would be a beautiful introduction to French wine, with the mineral and spice characters that show through. Just give it a few (2-3) hours in the decanter first.

2006 Mt Pleasant Philip Shiraz- Given the task of picking a red wine to match with Thai food, I reached for this. The Hunter style with relatively lower tannin than it's South Australian counterparts was much better at handling the spice in the food, especially given the sweet vanillla oak on the finish. This is one of Australia's great red wine bargains, and certainly a favourite with me.

Pirathon barossa valley 08 shiraz
What a surprise. The bloke in the shop said it was great and it is.
I don't remember what it taste like on the first day but on the second it was all dark chocolate and black forrest cake.
Dark cherries and yummy stuff.
Am absolute treat for its age.
I'd go it again.

1996 Wolf Blass Black Label - lacked the typical fruit I associate with this label. Maybe a bad bottle. Certainly not my favourite label by any stretch.

1993 Dom Perignon Oenotheque - an Ok wine, but at the price, a bit disappointing.

2006 Penfolds Bin 389 - after 24 hours air, this is really good. Can't wait to to see what its likein 2020+