The Auswine Forum

Hi Good Peoples,

I have just seen yet another negative tasting note on the Seppelts 1991 Show Sparkling Reserve, this time by Adair. It is interesting to note, I have yet to see one tasting note on this wine that is very positive.

I have not tried it yet so I do not know what it is all about but it is concerning when so many respected wine lovers all make negative comments about a wine that is supposed to be an icon. (I purchased a six pack so I do have a vested interest.)

Olivers site does not list it, it is doubtful that Jeremy has not tasted it, but when the scores are very low, he does not put them up.

So my questions are:-

1. Should Seppelt have released the wine?
2. If it is full of Brett, should they take them back and replace them with the 94's?
3. Does the level of Brett in this wine make it "defective" or just "not to peoples liking"?

Thoughts and comments welcome.

Torb

I have flicked back to my notes from past and found my comments on the 91.

I thought the wine good on release ( admittedly not experienced with the style ).

Without any idea of the possible Brett problem, my note makes reference to the barnyard and truffles. On release neither of these dominating and I felt well melded with the other notes of earth, plums and pepper.

The barnyard (brett) and truffles ( possibly Adair's metallic reference) made the wine unusually interesting in youth. Not a style I was familar with, but interesting never the less.

92 points X-Mas Eve 2002

I have noted with older CoteRoties, the pleasant barnyard characteristics in youth, can dominate the fruit with bottle age.

Can anyone else comment on this? Does Brett get worse with bottle age?

Good question Ric,

I liked this wine the first time I saw it, which was about 6 months pre-release at a Seppelt sparkling red vertical put on by Divine. I thought it looked excellent - yes, there was brett, and maker Ian MacKenzie admitted to it, but it fell into the realms of a "complexing agent" at the time - I thought. It was fleshy. It wasd soft. It drank beautifully.

When it was released, I liked it again - not as much as I had the first time, because the brett was a touch more obvious than it had been nine months earlier, but I still thought that it got away with it. I bought a few bottles.

Over the past 18 months though - and I've probably only come across it two or three times in that period - it's gotten worse and worse. I don't know whether this is the wine getting worse itself or whether my tolerance to brett is just decreasing.

When Paul Lapsley, noted winemaker, was at Seppelt GW for a short period, he thought the brett was over the top in this release, and he couldn't tolerate such levels. I said to him that I still liked it, and he simply shook his head.

When I was at the Seppelt cellar door in september 2002, the cellar door staff behind the counter were very negative about this wine, specifically due to its "pooey bretty smells". It was the current vintage at the time, and they were very much looking forward to changing over to the 1993. Just prior to my arrival a winemaker from New Zealand had dropped into their cellar door and, after tasting it, had bought two dozen bottles of the 1991 - the cellar door were standing around smiling; they couldn't believe their luck that someone had loved it and taken that much stock off their hands. Brett, of course, is something that some people love: at times I don't mind it either.

Murray Almond has reviewed and liked this wine, and (from memory, I could be wrong) I think I saw that David Lole had come across a bottle that wasn't too bad. Maybe some bottles are OK? Maybe the initial bottle that I reviewed (and favourably I think; I haven't checked) was one of the better bottles?

Ian MacKenzie, way back at that Divine tasting, described this wine as "Great Western's version of a Hunter". He didn't want to speak about it at length.

I was also interested to see that there have been a lot of "give-away" offers on this wine (buy a case of something, get a bottle of the 1991 free), which suggested to me that Seppelt wanted to get the damn wine out of its cellars as quickly as possible. It seemed almost as if it was an admission that there was something wrong with it - though some would (quite within their rights) dispute this. A wine at this level being given away free is not an everyday occurence.

Under all these circumstances, should the wine have been released, and should it now be replaced on request?

I think it's line-ball as to whether it should have been released - in general I think there's no problem with bretty wines being released (many people quite like the taste of brett, after all), though whether a wine of such pre-eminence should have been is a different matter, especially given its price. For the sake of the wine's reputation it probably shouldn't have been, but the same can be said of Henschke Mt Edelstone 1998 - or 1998 HOG for that matter. I don't think there's anything morally wrong with releasing such a wine; even if it is commercially unwise - and the fact that a lot of it has now been given away free probably suggests that southcorp have come to the same conclusion. If people now don't like the wine, at least they can say: well, I got the bottle for nothing ...

Should you be able to get a replacement for bottles that you paid for? Probably not IMHO. The wine was bretty when it was sold, it's still bretty, I can't see that any breach of promise has occurred. As a public relations act a replacement policy on bretty wines would be an extraordinarily generous move. There should though be no complusion. I have a couple of bottles of it still myself: I won't be asking for a refund or exchange. I also know that there are a number of people who still think that it's a good wine - maybe I'll serve it when they're around.

If we start replacing bretty wines though, a large chunk of european wines would be in trouble, as indeed would a large chunk of australians: I said to one high-positioned winemaker recently that I thought the incidence of brett was on the increase - he agree, and then said that he thought that upwards of 25 percent of red wines had some level of detectable brett.

25 percent.

which would be at the back of any winemaker's mind re: initiating a replacement policy.

Campbell.


www.winefrontmonthly.com.au

TORB wrote:1. Should Seppelt have released the wine?
2. If it is full of Brett, should they take them back and replace them with the 94's?
3. Does the level of Brett in this wine make it "defective" or just "not to peoples liking"?

Like Campbell alludes to, I think the brett has intensified over time. I noted on the back label that the wine won a truck load of awards, and do not think it would have won those awards in the shape it is currently in, but the last of those awards was 4 years ago so:

1) I don't think they have a legal requirement to replace the wine but... I am certain they would have known that the wine was getting worse with time and therefore should not have released the wine under the Show Reserve label.
2) Yes they should but they do not NEED to.
3) When brett (or in my mind any character that is not the result of the fermenting and aging of grape juice although some people seem to like oak) becomes the dominant aspect of a wine, it is defective.

I am just a bit annoyed because I could have spent my hard-earned much better... like choosing the 1994 beside it on the shelf!!!

BTW, warming the wine seemed to allow the fruit to match up much better against the brett and the metallic-ness also subsided. It tasted like a high-quality table wine whose winemaker put the sugar in the wine as opposed to his tea or coffee. Much more enjoyable than when cold though.

Adair

Jamie,

Yes,brett does get worse with age,and I guess that is the big problem with even minute amounts of it in a young wine. It comes in many guises too,everything from band-aid and intense friars balsam characters to the horsey,animal,feral notes that people are describing in the SS 91.

At the Seppelt tasting held all over the place a month or two ago,some late 80's and early 90's SS's were all showing varying degrees of brett character. The wines from the 50's that I have tried( 55 and 59,I think) were not similar to those at all.

Cheers

Cheers

Campbell wrote:
Murray Almond has reviewed and liked this wine, and (from memory, I could be wrong) I think I saw that David Lole had come across a bottle that wasn't too bad. Maybe some bottles are OK? Maybe the initial bottle that I reviewed (and favourably I think; I haven't checked) was one of the better bottles?

Campbell.

Campbell,

Thanks for dragging me into this, it must be the Seppelts thing (which I more than willing to live with!).

I can't recall I recent tasting or note on the 1991. The most recent I can find is from 2001 on the WLDG which I very much enjoyed, although the 1993 and especially the new 1994 are superior to it.

I think I also had it at the Masterclass in 2002, however thw WFM article on that event may have editted that note out in the interests of space.

Having said all that I am tolerant of the Brett characters within the context of the overall wine. At the Melbourne Offline in 2002 I really liked the Beaucastel I brought along although others were put off by the funkiness.

Brett, like VA is OK in context, too much of it is a fault. I think I have a 1991 tucked away, I might bring it out and make my own assessments.

Sorry about that Murray - I was sure that I'd seen you write on it in the past year or so but it's possible that it's the memory playing tricks on me - apologies if it wasn't you. I'm not as young as I used to be you know, and it's damn freezing up here.

I liked the Beaucastel you bought to that offline btw - but then, I also liked the 2000 stonier reserve pinot when it was released (another notoriously bretty wine). I suspect that I've become less tolerant to brett over time ... and there's also no doubt that brett presents in different ways in different wines, sometimes amiably, sometimes not.

When I served the 1991 seppelt show to an all-sparkling-shiraz dinner 18 months ago - blind - there were near universal howls of protest at the wine. There was SHOCK when the label was revealed.

cm.

Dug my TN up using the search engine: December 12, 2003

Seppelt Show Reserve Sparkling Shiraz 1991
Medium ruby with some amber in the hue and the tiniest of bubbles. Rich choco-berry nose with some sweet earth in the background. Lovely ripe berried fruit, creamy texture and medium body. Good persistence. Excellent. No Brett, off characters or anything to suggest faulty winemaking.

Can remember another even earlier bottle (close to release) at Jim Murphy's "1991" Wine Club Dinner - that was even fresher, not even a hint of sweet earth.

The only bottle I've tried this year was very bretty - mushrooms, horses, mice and bandaids to the fore - with the fruit mentioned above hiding in the background.

Sounds like the problem has manifested itself in the bottle, although there must be varying degrees of affectation/tolerance levels from the many differing reports I've read tonight.