The Auswine Forum

Seeing as nobody has started the thread yet, and we're still less than 2 weeks into the new year, I thought I'd share a few of my own vinous resolutions for 2021...

• Drink more champagne / good quality sparkling wine. I just don't do enough of this. I enjoy it, every time I open a bottle, it pairs brilliantly with a lot of the food we eat at home, and yet I never seem to have more than a couple of bottles in the house. Really should do more - going to aim for 1 bottle / month.
• Drink more sweet wine / port. See above (though I do have a lot in the house - but I seem to buy a lot more than I drink!).
• Explore Australia more. For me, last year was really about seeking out international wines. This year I'll spend more time looking closer to home.

And then a couple that aren't drinking related as such...

• Get better at CellarTracker. Use it more. Use other tools less (I currently record my wine cellar in no less than 4 different places - this can't be efficient!). And, if I do this, I should be able to track how I do on the resolutions above.
• Catch up on my Decanter back issues. I'm way behind, at least 12 months.
• Bring my cellar over from the UK. It's finally time to move on this I think. Whether I'll get around to it or not...

Cool thread. Mine would be:

- Keep tasting broadly, would like to taste more Jura, Sicily, Mosel, and other regions with very strong identities and unique wines.
- Try to get on the Wendouree mailing list.
- Get to know more people to share this hobby with.
- Visit more wine regions to do cellar tastings.

I don't make New Year's resolution but I may as well reiterate what I've been saying for quite some time, rather unsuccessfully I might add, to stop buying wines and drink down my cellar. So far I seem to be doing both.

One thing I must consider doing this year is to think about which 2001 wines I should open. Apparently I have about 40 of them.

Mahmoud.

The problem is that researching and purchasing wine is almost as fun as drinking them. I’ve often thought the only way to reduce purchasing is to unsubscribe from mailing lists, stop going on forums like this and generally read less about wine - which isn’t fun

DaveS wrote:The problem is that researching and purchasing wine is almost as fun as drinking them. I’ve often thought the only way to reduce purchasing is to unsubscribe from mailing lists, stop going on forums like this and generally read less about wine - which isn’t fun

100% , the time spent ignoring my wife and 2 kids researching wine is at least as much fun as drinking!...

Think I will carry on and keep going hard...inside the last 2 years of purchases. I am even buying new labels for the first time.
Cheers Craig

I'll hook into and source Classic Australia. Wines from the 80's and 90's.

DaveS wrote:The problem is that researching and purchasing wine is almost as fun as drinking them. I’ve often thought the only way to reduce purchasing is to unsubscribe from mailing lists, stop going on forums like this and generally read less about wine - which isn’t fun

To which I would add not venturing into wine stores.

JamieBahrain wrote:I'll hook into and source Classic Australia. Wines from the 80's and 90's.

Well cellared wines from the great years.. 86,90,91, 96, 98 are generally really good wines. Even 82 and 88 have spawned some enjoyable ones

Mahmoud Ali wrote:

DaveS wrote:The problem is that researching and purchasing wine is almost as fun as drinking them. I’ve often thought the only way to reduce purchasing is to unsubscribe from mailing lists, stop going on forums like this and generally read less about wine - which isn’t fun

To which I would add not venturing into wine stores.

Good grief, this is by far my biggest problem. I love just wandering around a decent wine store usually for far longer than the proprietors think is normal. And it's definitely rude to then leave empty-handed.

Mike Hawkins wrote:

JamieBahrain wrote:I'll hook into and source Classic Australia. Wines from the 80's and 90's.

Well cellared wines from the great years.. 86,90,91, 96, 98 are generally really good wines. Even 82 and 88 have spawned some enjoyable ones

Dammit just lost a long post here due to a browser glitch.

My thoughts agree with the above. IMHO I've had some good wines from 92 (Yarra), although perhaps a hot year in SA? 93 not bad, 94 quite good (especially VIC and WA), 95 not so good, 97 in the shadow of 96 but not so bad in SA, 99 in the shadow of 98 but also quite good and with good structure for the cellar. My fave being 96, as 98 seemed to be where the Parker darlings started down that path. IMHO this vintage started to divide the wine styles, with the traditionalists being great. 98 good in NZ, as perhaps one of the first riper vintages (Coleraine great that year). I have also enjoyed and kept a horizontal of NZ syrah from 99 to try sometime soon.

I have smatterings of 90-93, about 3 doz 94s, 5 doz 96, 3 doz 98, 2 doz 99, and smatterings of everything else in between. I had stocked up on 96 Penfolds and Wynns that vintage, but since sold many of them, which I somewhat regret as they are drinking superbly now.

Luckily or unluckily my birth year is 72, which perhaps lives in the shadow of 71, but not too shabby - 1 doz of these, mainly the usual Penfolds, Henscke, and Wynns suspects. Hoping they (and I) can hang in there at least until my 50th next year...

Purchases slowed down for me after that as I was living in different countries, and have only picked up again in recent vintages for kids' birth year wines, and to restock stalwarts and experiment with new producers that seem interesting.

I'd be curious to hear other comments about their take on the 90s...

Hi Kenzo,

I've been collecting wine for quite some time, from the 80s really, and even though I live in Canada, I put away a number of Australian wines even though there were few of them way back then. My first foray into Australian wine was Tahbilk, Taltani, and Wolf Blass, and I still have a few of them. As for the 90s there are quite a few more, almost too many to mention. Suffice it to say that they include 1990, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999, every year except one. Oh dear, having just checked, I see that I also have a 1993 Maurice O'Shea, which was delightful more than a decade ago, so in effect I have a bottle of something from every year in that decade.

Most of them I have not tried but of the ones I did, I can tell you that Jamieson's Run from 1991/1992 are still youthful and tannic; the 1994 Kalimna is now tertiary but not dead; the 1996 Koonunga Hill is probably going to age like the inaugural 1986; the 1998 Rockford 'Moppa Springs' and Hamilton's 'Marion Vineyard' are ready and drop dead gorgeous; both the 1996 Wynn's Black Label have been problematic in that they were flawed; and a 1999 Punter's Corner Shiraz was still in development. Oh, yes, a Lindeman's Bin number Hunter Shiraz, either the 1995 or 1996, was a lot of fun if you like dry, faded, leathery, and herbal Hunter wines.

I have cut down on my purchasing so little in the way of the 2000s and 2010s, mostly limited to "cannot resist" prices of some sort or the other, the best being a 2010 Miranda Old Vines Shiraz Mourvedre for $10 a bottle - who wouldn't jump at that!

Cheers ......................... Mahmoud.