The Auswine Forum

Hi all,

My Nan's 90th this weekend and we all go up to the Hunter tomorrow to spend 5 days celebrating. Want to pull some decent bottles out but in the predicament of the usual equation of some people just won't understand it and want to get it down their gob quickly

To top it off where we are having the main dinner is charging $20 a bottle corkage.

So was thinking of a cabernet theme but not sure how these wines are travelling - if anyone has some notes that would be great.

1999 Tatachilla 1901 Cab Sauv
2000 Peppertree Coonawarra - Jimmy Watson winner
1999 Peppertree Coonawarra Grand Reserve
2003 Peppertree Hunter Cab Sauv
2001 Peppertree Coonawarra Cab Sauv
2003 Bowen Estate
1996 Jack Mann Magnum
1996 John Riddoch

I would more than likely take 3 to dinner - any recommendations - hesitant on the Jack Mann and Riddoch

Hi there,

The Riddoch would certainly be far too young, even the 94 wasn't even close to ready at a recent Riddoch tasting... Don't know the others, but from reviews the Jack Mann is likely to be impressive, and a magnum would only cost you one lot of corkage!! Give it a good decant of course, could be a star, but fair to say better in a few more years.

Cheers
Tim

TiggerK wrote:Hi there,

The Riddoch would certainly be far too young, even the 94 wasn't even close to ready at a recent Riddoch tasting... Don't know the others, but from reviews the Jack Mann is likely to be impressive, and a magnum would only cost you one lot of corkage!! Give it a good decant of course, could be a star, but fair to say better in a few more years.

Cheers
Tim

I agree. I' had the 96 about 6 months ago and I just had to take its future greatness on faith, because it was totally unapproachable.

The Jack Mann should be superb though it will happily live for a long while yet I would have thought.

We had the 99 Pepper Tree Grand Reserve Coonawarra Cabernet last year on advice from the winery that it probably wasn't going to get much better (FWIW it was excellent). I seem to recall them also saying the 98s and 00s might go a bit more.

Is that really "$20./bottle" corkage or is that a misprint.

Thanks all for the info - unfortunately my phone is with Vodafail and had terrible 3G reception so responding now that I am back in the land of the living.

Ended up changing what I took and we went with the following

2001 Peppertree Coonawarra Classics x2 - Cabernet, Merlot, Cab Franc. These were fantastic the Cabernet Franc gave it a lovely lift
1996 - Brands Laira Stentiford Shiraz - This was the WOTN
2004 Church Block Magnum - Good drinking but wasn't really a patch on the others.

And yes you read right on the $20 corkage. This place was fully licensed so was good of them to allow us to bring our own. Considering they had $16-20 wines on their menu selling for at least $40 a bottle the $20 corkage wasn't so bad. The did decant all the wines for us as well and provided better glassware.