The Auswine Forum

Early this month I attended one of my club's annual members's only tasting, which this year was a vertical of the iconic Mount Mary Vineyard's Quintet. It turned out to be a tasting worthy of the occasion, with a rare occurrence of no horrible cork failures and a remarkable high consistency of quality and style across the vintages. The following wines were decanted approximately three hours prior to the meeting:


FLIGHT 1:

2008 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.8% alc (DIAM): Medium to almost dark red/purple. Quite toasty and earthy, currants and fruit pastilles, hints of tomato skin/sauce, a little EA and malty oak with air; a tart entry leads to a tarry, chalky palate with jubey fruit, tightly knit, medium-weight with excellent length. Lots of promise right from the very beginning.

2005 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 13% alc (DIAM): Medium to dark crimson/purple. Much sweeter than the 2008 vintage, minty with some cloves, cedar and nutmeg adding to a core of sweet currant fruit, some ozone & eucalyptus with breathing. A soft entry with touches of cocoa and sous bois is followed by jubes/jellies and mint, the tight, spicy palate fattening with breathing, the long finish dry, mineraly and peppery. Gorgeous now, but its best is at least a decade away.

2004 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 13% alc (DIAM): Medium to dark crimson/purple. Very similar to the 2005 vintage, a little tarry and more inky, but still minty with touches of cloves and cedar with deep, currant fruit. The palate's bright and tangy, slightly bigger than the 2005 and not quite as earthy, but the impressive chalky structure and peppery finish are near identical; likewise its best is yet to come.

2003 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 13% alc (cork): Medium to very dark crimson with a bare hint of purple. Darker and earthier than the 2004 & 2005 vintages, it seems to be riper with bigger, raspberry fruit up front, touches of scorched earth, cocoa/powdered chocolate, and a slightly leaner finish. It seems to be an earlier drinker than the other two, but is still very true to the house style.


FLIGHT 2:

2002 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Light to medium crimson. Toasty and fruity, a bit like a poptart, with cooler paprika, tomato, cedar and menthol characters, becoming beautifully perfumed like a tea rose with breathing; a soft, sweet berry entry leads to a light to medium weight, velvety palate with very grippy tannins on the finish. Some questioned if this it was a slightly forward bottle, but it was still very good to say the least.

2001 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Medium to dark crimson. Sweet cedar and cherries, some clove, mushroom and smoked deli meats with breathing; the palate's very earthy (eg. taste the dirt) with ripe, tangy fruit underneath, and a rather odd, tangy/metallic finish. It seems caught a little in between phases in such a strong line up.

2000 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.2% alc (cork): Medium to almost dark crimson. From the first whiff and sip this was obviously a major step up in the vertical, beautiful and constantly changing with fresh coffee beans, sweet cherries and jubes, sous bois, sweet/smoked meats, river stones, musk, cedar and green tobacco. A soft entry is followed by a slow build up of tangy blackcurrants and earth, hints of pepper and beetroot, very soft and very long and velvety. A brilliant wine, but not even the second best vintage in the vertical tonight.

1999 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Light to medium garnet. Sweet leather and cedar, blackcurrants and smoked meats, some coffee & sous bois with breathing; the palate's slightly more advanced than the 2000, tangy and minty with a rather green but soft, grippy finish. Not quite in the same class, but a very good follow up all the same.


FLIGHT 3:

1998 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Light to medium garnet. Very close to the 2000 vintage, if anything it's a little less developed and has more potential; very complex and ever changing, blackcurrant, toast, coffee, sous bois, cedar, slightly vegetal characters, liquorice, pepper and parsley. The palate's tangy and sweet, smoky and chalky, with loads of grip and massive length, just a little bitter on the finish; needs at least another five years to show its best, possibly more.

1996 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Light to almost medium garnet with a brick rim. A little more oaky than the 1998 vintage, with sweet banana and toast on the nose, followed by black liquorice and earth, the blackcurrant fruit a little sweet and sour, more minty/chocolaty with breathing. A soft entry leads into a lovely, jubey mid-palate, with soft, chewy, Burgundy-like tannins on the long, sweet finish; not quite up there with the best in the vertical, but drinking beautifully all the same.

1994 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 13% alc (cork): Light to medium garnet with a brick rim. Radically different in style to the rest of the wines in the vertical, very oaky, sweet and sour, coffee, sous bois, barnyard and a sharp/bitey whiff of menthol; the palate's chewy, rather leafy/minty with obvious vanillin oak, and a tannic/chewy finish. A polarising wine that had its supporters, but seemed rather odd to others.

1993 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 13% alc (cork): Light to almost medium brick/garnet. Fully developed and spicy, with white pepper, espresso and smoked meats, ground paprika and nutmeg, soft red currant fruit; the palate's a little simple but has a lovely, silky structure and beautiful length. Despite being one of the lesser wines in the vertical, it's drinking beautifully right now.


FLIGHT 4:

1992 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Light to medium brick/red. The bouquet is a little past its best, slightly vinegary at first with sweet/nougat oak and gunpowder, then caramel and meaty/jus appear with breathing. There's still sweet/bright fruit and a citrus tang on the palate, which is lightweight with herbal/parsley characters, finishing long and grippy with some caramel on the end.

1991 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12% alc (cork): Medium to almost dark crimson. From the first whiff this announces itself as an absolute classic, still fresh with blackcurrant and tobacco, tar and smoked meats; the palate's just as fresh, bright and tangy, medium weight but full of blackcurrant, black jubes, spices and tobacco, culminating in a lovely long, fine but grippy finish.

1990 Mount Mary Vineyard Quintet, Yarra Valley 12.5% alc (cork): Medium to very dark crimson. Amazingly, even better again than the 1991 vintage, sweeter and chocolaty, fat and tarry with touches of cinnamon; the palate's jubey, blackcurrant fruit is almost drenched in sweet spices and tobacco, with a minty-mid-palate and masses of grip on the extremely long, chalky finish. An outstanding wine to finish a brilliant tasting, one that flirts with perfection.



Cheers
Ian

Jealous !!

So would there be a functional relationship between low alcohol and elegance.

Cheers, Peter

Ian

that's an awesome line up and great notes

I think that MM are perhaps one of, if not Australia's best Cab / Cab blend and would stand toe to toe with some of the best French wines of similar style, but at a fraction of their cost.

I noticed that you missed the famed 2006 vintage.

MM is one of the biggest representatives in my cellar, but I really only started collecting them since 2003, so I think I need to wait at least 4-5 years before I get into them.

Cheers

The late and great Australian, Dr. John Middleton was an outstanding, self-taught winemaker with passionate, and often quite radical and outspoken, views on all things wine, which he expressed without fear or favour through his printed annual release/vintage report/order form or obtained more readily (and always to a fine point) over the telephone if you wanted greater elaboration. His rationale on issues of high alcohol, oak usage, crass commercialism and the show circuit generally hit the button with me and the several times I talked with him over the years were always an enlightening and educational experience. My first purchase from him was the 1990 Quintet which was so seductive as a youngster, I, regretfully, consumed far too many at too young an age. The fact this particular wine performed so brilliantly at this vertical is no suprise to this writer - I can recall drinking my last bottle of this about ten years ago at a restaurant with some wine-savvy friends and saying "you bloody fool, this wine is getting better and better and has some way to go". But to buy more of it back then would have cost me close to $250 a bottle on the secondary market (another moot issue (callous profiteering) in John's intellectual armory). It's not fetching quite that much these days, but it's still way up there compared to what I paid for it direct from the winery in the nineties.

It's heartening to read from Ian's excellent tasting notes that the marque is still producing wine of the highest calibre since John's passing in 2006 with the 2008 vintage and then the terrific performance of so many bottles in the tasting, perhaps reflecting Middleton's unswerving and immaculate approach to all things vinous. Quite an amazing performance for a small volume "boutique" producer from the Yarra Valley.

I'd like to take the opportunity of thanking Ian for providing us with such an important post.

Now that is a real tasting!!
Nice!

Thanks very much for this Ian.
First tried MM Q at a Baily and Baily instore tasting about 15 years ago, where the 94 vintage was on tasting for $40. Hellishly expensive at the time but after writing to Dr John and being informed in no uncertain terms that there were 5,950 on the mailing list, I might be lucky to get a couple of bottles.
I purchased 95 to 04 and 10 vintages should be a nice line up.
I went to the winery several times and on a couple of occasions it was just Dr John and myself, he was a fascinating character, but still incurred his wrath being 10 minutes late for an appointment, after having driven 750 kms from Adelaide!

Next to WCE JR and Redbank Sally's, Quintet is one of those hauntingly beautiful wines for me that never dissappoints.
Dr John and Dr Bailey Carrodus from YY for that matter were two outstanding characters and IMHO MM and YY are the wines from the Yarra.

Cheers Craig.

Oh to have your job, Ian

Sounds like a tasting made in heaven you lucky bastard. The 86 MM was the second greatest wine I've ever drunk and the 04 was voted one of the WOTN at one of our offlines (thanks Gerry) where many thought it outpointed the 96 Grange!

Glad to see the quality hasn't disappeared with out Middleton's guiding hand.

the 1994 doesn't sound right to me...

Seven wrote:the 1994 doesn't sound right to me...

Try saying it with an accent

FWIW I had a 2001 recently and could not make sense of it. Couldn't really taste anything much at all. All closed up. Dunno what's going on here. Needs ages perhaps? Maybe too subtle for my basic palette.

Also FWIW, had a 2000 recently, and it was sublime. Ian's note very accurate to our experience with it. Great wine.

cuttlefish wrote:

Seven wrote:the 1994 doesn't sound right to me...

Try saying it with an accent

with what accent...?

Seven wrote:

cuttlefish wrote:

Seven wrote:the 1994 doesn't sound right to me...

Try saying it with an accent

with what accent...?

With a Glaswegian accent... If that doesn't work I'd try a sub region of Glasgow like Takndapiss or Avinalaff.

All the wines were purchased direct from Mt. Mary and had basically remained in the same position in the cellar since purchase. The '92 was my last bottle as I thought it had peaked about 5 years ago, although at the tasting the impression I had was that it had changed little over the remaining period.
While double decanting the wines for the tasting, the room was filled with the perfumed aromas of the younger ones, violets and redcurrant.
The 2004 and 1999 had thrown the biggest crust. All bar 2 corks pulled in one piece and showed minimal wine migration (except for the 1993).
I particularly enjoyed the consistency of style at this tasting, a testament to the skills of the people at Mt. Mary.

Looking through some old newsletters I came this snippet

The 1990 Cabernets is dense ruby in colour, has a powerful aroma of cedar, fine oak, classical cabernet and is already perfumed with violets,
small berry fruits and cocoa bean. The flavour of the wine follows the aroma and bouquet. The customary sweet fruit of a young claret fills the
mouth, tannins are fine and plentiful and there is a good clean, young acid long finish. This is a beautifully structured young claret which is going
to enchant people for years to come with its fineness and complexity.
There is not a hint of jam or port and this is a great virtue in a dry red table wine.
Jam in wine is stuff for novices and we aspire to producing wines with greater sophistication as we recognised long ago that the members of our
mailing list had progressed far beyond the novice stage in wine appreciation.
A winemaker who structures his reds with dry porty overtones misreads the market for fine wine lovers.

I particularly like the last two lines.
How things have changed in the wider market.

cheers
Phill

Yep, those last two sentences are pure gold. RP is such a novice.

Has anyone got a tasting note on the 1997 as I just bought one?