The Auswine Forum

Seeing that others have already (appreciatively) posted links to the site, I might as well add one:

John Glaetzer has retired from Wolf Blass after three decades of championship winemaking. Article at:

www.winefrontmonthly.com.au/newsevents.htm

cheers,

Campbell.

From the article:

"John will retire from his current full time position at Wolf Blass at the end of July"

Dang. Diddly-dang. Diddly-ding-dang-crap!

"... to concentrate more of his time on family life and to focus on his John's Blend Wine Company. "

Woohoo!

Glaetzer was a good winemaker in his day and from all reports he is a good bloke, but his day was done, the world had passed his style of wine by, the wines of his natural successor Caroline Dunn are, IMVHO, far superior. Good luck to Glaetzer, a good career, but I suspect that history won't be all that kind to the style of wine he championed. IMVHO.

KL.

guest wrote:Glaetzer was a good winemaker in his day and from all reports he is a good bloke, but his day was done, the world had passed his style of wine by, the wines of his natural successor Caroline Dunn are, IMVHO, far superior. Good luck to Glaetzer, a good career, but I suspect that history won't be all that kind to the style of wine he championed. IMVHO.

KL.

KL,
I guess it depends on who is writing the history, but you can't take back all the medals he won or the sales of his wines.

There are some old codgers like myself who still like many of his wines and Johns Blend is one of my few "every vintage" buys. If indeed the new generation has moved on, then that may be a good explanation as to why his prices for the JB have hardly risen for many years, I'll contunue to buy whilst he maintains the style and the value.

Interestingly though, having tried the 2002 Grey Label Shiraz and Cabernet I wasn't very impressed and thought there may be a style change there, I wonder did he make them still that vintage? Also my Monday tasting group tried most of the cheaper Wolf Blass reds from 2002 (not the Gold Label series though) and we found them all most unimpressive for the vintage in comparison to other reds available at similar prices.

Aren't personal preferences a wonderful thing?

guest wrote:Glaetzer was a good winemaker in his day and from all reports he is a good bloke, but his day was done, the world had passed his style of wine by, the wines of his natural successor Caroline Dunn are, IMVHO, far superior. Good luck to Glaetzer, a good career, but I suspect that history won't be all that kind to the style of wine he championed. IMVHO.

KL.

I suppose you're right, in that most people have an aversion to the product of his "No wood, no good" maxim. The thing is that with bottle age, even the lower order of the premiums, for example the Brown or even (in great years) the Yellow Label, lost their overt oak profile to become well integrated, highly enjoyable wines; and nobody in their right mind will argue against the Black Label's often brilliant development with age. What we'll be losing is affordable wine in a somewhat unique style, and that's a shame to my mind, whenever it happens. On the flip side, some would argue that the wines had already taken a rather turn, stylistically, over the last few vintages. At least we'll still have the John's Blends, maybe even further varieties thereof!

That last post belongs to me...forgot to log in

Anonymous wrote:That last post belongs to me...forgot to log in

Heh No, not twice!? ..it would seem something's misbehaving with the log in function. Maybe Firefox related

Almost bizarre too, how similar your comments are, Red Bigot, and posted concurrently. Something in 'The Force' rang out just then?