Very light red with orange hues. Nose is pretty vicious and “dirty†with hints of mulberries and massive VA. Palate is very strident with heaps of acid, no fruit, formaldehyde and paint stripper. These wines are supposed to be held 3-5 years according to the winery. Yeah, right. I’ve had better A$4 cleanskin rosés. In general I always drink my rosé in its youth (first year of release) but I wanted to test the ageing capability of this Reserve. Not cheap at A$32.
<b>Poor 14.0 / 20</b>
<b>2001 Bass Phillip Gamay</b>
Light red. Good ruby clarity. Sweetly perfumed on the nose – reminiscent of strawberries and cherries. Very nice. The palate is quite dry with hints of fruit and spice. Finishes very clean and full. Good length. Desperately needs food. Doesn’t live up to the nose. Not a style I like either – too turbo-charged. For what it is …
<b>Good 16.0 / 20</b>
<b>1998 Bass Phillip Premium Chardonnay</b>
Very light yellow. Excellent colour. Vanilla and creamy oak nose (in a good way). Reserved fruit of cashews and nuts. Tight. Very good length. Quite Burgundian (in fact one of the most Burgundian Aussie chardonnays I have ever had) – more so than Giaconda and Mount Mary. No hint of tropical fruits – only stone fruits, nuts, minerals and sea-shells. Concentrated. A top Aussie chardonnay – my only criticism is slight excess oak. Has enough acidity for the long haul but why wait?
<b>Very Good 17.5 / 20</b>
<b>1994 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir</b>
Light red with brown hues. Mature nose – gamey, meaty. Some primary fruit of cherries with some spice. Quite good. The palate has good but not great length. Light to medium bodied. Singularly unexciting despite remnants of primary fruit but little in the way of secondary development. Nice balance. Dry finish. Good structure with fleshy overtones. Ranked by the winery as one of the best Premiums between 1989-2000 but not for me.
<b>Good 16.5 / 20</b>
<b>1995 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir </b>
Similar to the 94 in colour. But more youthful on the nose with sweet primary fruit and more noticeable alcohol. The palate offers better length and is fuller bodied. Drinking very well. More pronounced tannin shell; antithesis of the aforesaid 94Â’s softness and plushness. I still preferred this.
<b>Very Good 17.0 / 20 </b>
<b>1995 Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir </b>
Light to medium red. Heavily extracted nose that is very full and rich. The alcohol massages everything, even after two hours in a decanter. Palate is pretty wild and funky. A clear step up in concentration from the Premium but in my opinion not necessarily better. Hot alcoholic finish. Again, not an easy or enjoyable wine to drink. Lots of tannin at the finish and although it will last I donÂ’t think it will improve further. In short, too alcoholic for me.
<b>Good 16.5 / 20</b>
<b>1996 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir </b>
The first of the longer corks (~5cm). Mid red and almost impenetrable in the glass. Bouquet is deep and rich plums and hints of ripe berries. Very good. Took two hours to open out. Very rich palate with a long and full finish. Certainly very good but a big wine – not sure it is typical of Pinot Noir (Aussie or French). Abundant black fruits. No hint of oak. Very fine tannins. The best Pinot so far tasted by a considerable margin – but the palate needed 4 hours to flourish and lose its hot alcohol.
<b>Very Good 17.5 / 20</b>
<b>1997 Bass Phillip Pinot Noir </b>
Light red and no signe of ageing. Bouquet offers plums and flashy fruits. Elegant and perfumed. Very good. Palate is at its peak and drinking very well. Well balanced with good length and oak and tannin integration is classy. Not big or full like the Reserve/Premium but suitably proportioned, delicate and elegant. More Pinot Noir-ish.
<b>Very Good 17.0 / 20</b>
<b>1996 Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir </b>
:weep: Corked. Absolutely dead on both the nose and palate. A$115 down the drain!
I spoke to Phillip Jones and he promised a replacement after he had finished his harvest.
<b>2000 Bass Phillip The Village Pinot Noir</b>
Light red with some premature brown inklings. Hint of sweet plums and some cinnamon on the nose with residual oak. First impression drinking the wine is the incredible firm acid backbone and some AV “heatÂâ€Â. Needed at least three hours to resurrect itself. Obviously young vines fruit with little in the way of intensity. Too simple and lacking any distinction.
<b> Good 16.0 / 20</b>
<b>1997 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir </b>
:damn: Corked. Hideously stale, with off-pitting chemical and soggy woollen jumpers aromas.
<b>1998 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir </b>
Mid red. Dark chocolate aromas, rich cherries, plums and spice. Palate is reasonably balanced and drinking very well. Not a long termer and appears at its peak now (although winery suggests until 2008. Not as intense or concentrated as the 97s. Expected more from this wine and not enough fruit and the length was disappointing for this marque.
<b>Good 16.5 / 20</b>
<b>1997 Bass Phillip Reserve Pinot Noir </b>
Really looked forward to this given this is considered the single greatest vintage ever for Bass Phillip and this, of course, his piece de resistance. This is the one that Oliver, the winemaker and co. all rate over 19.0 / 20 and gush superlatives. My last experience of it on release was very good but far from Grand Cru status. The colour is amazing and sets the tone that this is a Statement Wine screaming “WOW, look at me!†– mid to dark red. No browns. Like a Barossa Shiraz! Excellent though. Bouquet approximates Burgundy. Deep, rich, ripe fruit in spades. Additional spice. Clean and not very earthy. Needed two hours to eek out its existence. Very youthful but starting to develop its very first hints of complexity and secondary characters. Palate has lovely balance. Fruit, oak, tannin and alcohol all well integrated and backed by obvious acidity. Lovely texture. Perhaps at this stage it is lacking dimension but a wine that looks set for a super future. Given its relative age and youth, this should clearly evolve considerably in 2-5 years (the winery recommends drinking this 2004-12). Great potential (and very likely the first time I have ever used this for an Aussie Pinot). Very good length. Very close to an Excellent rating now given its generous fruit and lovely structure, and not as extracted like previous vintages of the Reserve. A fine wine with a very positive outlook. It is still the highest rating I have ever given an Aussie Pinot Noir and the best I have tried.
<b>Very Good 17.8 / 20</b>
<b>1999 Bass Phillip The Crown Prince Pinot Noir </b>
Light brown tinges already apparent. Nose is not very revealing but after decanting showed some smoky oak, spice and a smidgin of red fruit. Palate is disappointing. Intensely oaky and heaps of VA. Very acidic. Somewhere amid this near catastrophe is some lurking fruit prising to breathe. And this is a very good vintage for Bass Phillip. Mediocre length. A simple and boring wine that is barely palatable. The young vine age cannot counteract the 15-months in oak. What went wrong?
<b>Average 15.0 / 20</b>
<b>Comments</b>
- These were tasted in the order presented and not blind over the last three weeks (with and without food).
- They were not tasted as part of a vertical but on a rolling basis – that is, each night I opened a bottle and compared leftovers of bottle 1 (day 2) with opening of bottle 2.
- I have had most of these wines before so knew what to expect.
- Bass Phillip Pinot Noir wines require extensive decanting – the wines were clearly shut upon opening and improved markedly with a minimum two hours decanting.
- All Pinot Noirs contained 13% A/V.
- Bass Phillip wines are produced according to the following principles: low cropping (less than 1.5 tonnes/acre), no irrigation, no residual pesticides, minimal additives, gravity feed, French oak maturation of 15-24 months, and unfiltered.
- The wines are made to last, even the Rose and Gamay. The winery proclaims and recommends a minimum 3-5 years for all wines.
- The wines are very expensive, with the Reserve wines now topping A$225 per bottle.
- The wines might be expressive of the Leongatha / South Gippsland region in Victoria but to me they are completely unlike the terroir of Burgundy. They are less Burgundian to me than Mount Mary. Not that I care – Aussie winemakers shouldn’t be emulating the style of Burgundy but reflecting their own terroir.
- Overall, I think they are better wines than the Mount Mary Pinot Noirs. The Mount Mary wines have more perfumed and floral noses and are medium bodied. The Bass Phillips are more age worthy, bigger in structure, fuller-bodied and more extracted.
- But like the Mount Mary Pinot Noirs, they are IMO technically pristine and clean, yet irrefutably boring and lacking of character and excitement.
-I actually had another 7 wines lines up from the 1998-2001 vintages but just lost interest drinking mainly this style of Pinot over the last few weeks. I shelved them for a later time.
- Interestingly, I noticed the use of longer corks from 1996 onwards for the Reserve and Premium lines.
- As borne out in this tasting and in previous ones, the Reserve is not necessarily the best wine. I do lean toward the Premium as my favourite Bass Phillip Pinot as I think the extraction of the Reserve can be too overwhelming. But with the Premium at A$175 it is unlikely I will ever buy again (note I do not begrudge Bass Phillip charging these prices but I can get a lot of top Bordeaux or even top class Premier Cru Burgundy for this price).
