The Auswine Forum

At last the long awaited notes for the second Super Shiraz tasting, featuring another eight of the top 2002 wines Steve (aka 707) and the gang have found from this impressive vintage – and of course one very notable ring-in! I was lucky enough to fill again, this time for Cameron, so I have to thank everyone for again including me in this great event.

As usual, all wines were tasted blind and after about an hour all 16 participants voted for their most preferred, two next preferred and their least preferred drops. In a line-up like this it's tougher than you may think!

With my notes there was a clear division between my top four wines and the rest, and again my opinions differed from the rest of the panel on one particular wine that turned out to be the highest ranked by the group.

2002 Liebich The Darkie Shiraz $39: Inky purple/black colour. Sweet plum and sugared blackberry fruit matched to obvious but clean oak make for an impressive nose to begin with. With breathing the fruit characters become sweeter and intense with chocolate, briar and a touch of liquorice, swallowing that oak up without a trace. The powerhouse tannins drive the palate from the very beginning, with rich blackberry fruit, some raisins, and liquorice on the dry finish. This was impressive from the start, and continued to improve all night; with more breathing time I suspect it could be the best of the flight.

My ranking: =2nd place
Panel ranking: 3rd place
BTs: 3 most preferred, 4 second, 1 least


2002 Magpie Estate The Election Shiraz $60: Inky purple/red colour. Gorgeous nose at first with obvious lightly toasted coffee oak matched to rich and sweet reduced blackberries and violets. The palate features a subdued entry, and an slow build up of immense power without the slightest hint of over-ripeness or hot alcohol; fully integrated coffee oak, formic acid, lingering black olive and smoke round out the impressive finish. In a very close battle between my top four, this seemed to be fractionally more polished than the other contenders, and topped my list.

My ranking: 1st place
Panel ranking: 2nd place
BTs: 4 most, 6 second, 1 least


2002 Lengs & Cooter Reserve Shiraz $43: Inky purple/black colour. Very obvious and sweet oak dominate the nose, even more so than the Magpie Estate; sweet coffee/mocha, earth, dust, hints of green, and toffee/marzipan that borders on going over the top. The palate again is similar to the Magpie Estate in its structure; a soft entry, and a slow, massive build up of spicy/briary blackberry fruit, obvious oak and entwined tannins. The finish was different in being slightly green and not as long, with a trace of alcohol heat. I think you have to be reasonably tolerant of the flamboyant oak to like this wine, and the panel seemed fairly divided.

My ranking: =2nd place
Panel ranking: =5th place
BTs: 0 most, 3 second, 2 least


2002 Kilikanoon The Oracle Shiraz $40: Inky purple/black colour. Slightly toasted/buttery oak marks the nose at first, then after a while closing, some plum fruit and slightly stinky coffee oak appear. The palate at first showed no sign of that oak, with spicy blackberry fruit dominating; with breathing that oak kicks in and takes over, finishing shorter than the top wines.

My ranking: 5th place
Panel ranking: =5th place
BTs: 0 most, 1 second, 0 least


2002 Tin Shed Single Wire Shiraz $45: Impressive inky purple/black colour. A stinky, green nose that seemed to be all over the place; buttery oak, herbaceous characters that border on asparagus/green peas, some ripe raisin and a touch of armpit sweat. The palate has a soft entry and sweet black cherry, blackcurrant fruit, medium-weight in this field, and a bitter green finish with some alcohol heat. I swear this cannot be the same wine that I loved at the Norwood small winemakers show six months ago, which was nowhere as wintergreen as this; hopefully it’s just a bad bottle or a transition phase.

My ranking: =7th place
Panel ranking: =5th place
BTs: 0 most, 4 second, 3 least


2002 Buller Calliope Shiraz $36: Inky purple/red colour. This had a very unusual nose at first, with slightly floral/perfume notes and some chemical/varnish characters before closing up. With air the toasted oak seemed obvious, with burnt wood/fireplace charred brick characters. The palate has a soft entry, and an impressive build up of sweet cherry/confectionery fruit and massive tannin, but I found the finish dropped off and that 16% alcohol was too noticeable. The standout difference between my votes and the group, with it being the highest rated wine of the night.

My ranking: =7th place
Panel ranking: 1st place
BTs: 6 most, 4 second, 0 least


2002 Yering Station Reserve Shiraz Viognier $50: Dark purple colour, not deep but glowing. A very floral and spicy nose, with geranium, a hint of mint, stewed plum and blackberry, and some cinnamon. The palate was light-bodied compared with the rest of the line-up, again with stewed/cooked fruit, a short finish and hot alcohol that seemed to get even worse with breathing. Not surprisingly my least favourite wine; Winky remarked that it’s pretty obvious I don’t like these blends, especially in blind tastings against classy opponents.

My ranking: 9th place
Panel ranking: 8th place
BTs: 0 most, 1 second, 1 least


2002 Fox Creek Reserve Shiraz $60: Inky purple/red colour. A completely closed nose that offered only a hint of green/mint and earthy berries all night. The palate again seemed to be very sulky, with the impressive structure standing out a mile in front of the fruit, finishing with some blackberry and olive. I was quite generous with my marks for this wine, as I suspected it really needed a lot more breathing to see the fruit. Time will tell.

My ranking: 6th place
Panel ranking: 9th place
BTs: 0 most, 3 second, 4 least


1999 Peter Lehmann Stonewell Shiraz $67: Dark to inky purple/red colour. Very complex nose of buttery oak and slight floral/black tea notes at first, some obvious burnt rubber/bitumen, fireplace char, shredded coconut, chocolate, plum, earthy tomato and prune. The magnificent structure was the best of the group, with a soft entry followed by a teasingly slow build up of massive tannin and oak fully integrated with blackberry/prune fruit, finishing with lingering coffee and a touch of alcohol heat. In the taste-off for first it was unlucky to finish fourth on my list; while it was complex it seemed a little disjointed, something I also thought at the previous Super Shiraz tasting. The panel was divided on this one too, with quite a few noting it was quite different from two weeks ago, but still voting it last.

My ranking: 4th place
Panel ranking: 4th place
BTs: 3 most, 5 second, 4 least


Cheers
Ian

Great post. Well done. Very interesting to see your preferences.

And it just goes to show how divergent all our tastes are: I have tried all those wines, and the only one of them I would consider buying is the Yering Station, which was pretty much your least preferred. I suspect that this has nothing to do with bottle variation and everything to do with personal taste differences. Viva la difference!

GA.

I assume (given the price tag) that the Yering Station was the Reserve.

I wonder whether the Calliope got lots of votes because it was the best wine or because it just drowned out anything more subtle.

Kieran

Not that the other wines are overly subtle!

I think the Calliope has always been described as a love it or hate it style, which is exactly as it has performed here. Good on it.

GA.

Ian,

Thanks for the notes, as usual it makes good reading. Given that the Black Tongues are not a bunch of wine amateurs, the results whilst interesting are not that conclusive.

The reason I say that we all have different stylistic tastes and one persons favourite style is another's least preferred. So, in some ways all the rankings tells us is a bit about the style the tasters prefer and which is the best wine within that style.

But even then, that last statement is not necessarily true. I love the Election too, thought it was great but it is just as possible that a wine may not rate highly because it is closed down and not showing a lot and given five years it may be the best wine if these were tried again?

And thats why the TN's are so important.

Food for thought.

Ian,
Thanks for the notes. Interesting scores. The Calliope is a wonderful drink in the NE Victoria "style", and I am not suprised it was so popular- it drinks well young, and never seems to go thru a closed period.
However, it does polarise people, and I can fully understand your sentiment.
The 1996 is, IMO, the best of the marque to date. But, you have to like that stuff, and personally, I can take about a glass a month, and no more.
Haven't tried the Election yet- will have to do so soon.

it is just as possible that a wine may not rate highly because it is closed down and not showing a lot and given five years it may be the best wine if these were tried again?

At the first Super Shiraz tasting two weeks this was a real problem for me, and I seemed to be vigorously working over almost every wine to get them to open up and strut their stuff. This time around most of the wines seemed to be open from the very beginning, with the notable exception of the Fox Creek; I was very generous with my assessment, but others weren't so forgiving. I think two weeks ago everyone thought the same thing - it would be interesting to come back to these in about 5-10 years time when they should be really singing.

In regard to the Calliope, probably what distanced me from the rest of the panel was the alcohol. Wicko remarked about being surprised at the 16% level and that it hid it very well, while I thought it stuck out a mile. In these events featuring massive amounts of fruit, tannin and oak, I seem to be quite sensitive (and critical) to the increased alcohol levels. In the cases of the Calliope and the Kaesler Old Vine two weeks ago, I'd guess that would be the major sticking point in my assessments, especially when I'm splitting hairs in order to give each wine a rank in the time allotted.

Cheers
Ian

Ric, you're on the mark as usual. Blacktongues is a group of 15 highly educated palates of all persuasions that have been doing these tastings for almost 20 years.

The lineups are blind and to a theme, mainly new release wines, this is where I make my buying decisions, it doesn't get any tougher on a wine than in a blind line up with just nibbles for accompanying food.

We also do about 5 tastings a year as a retrospective for wines between 6 and 12 years of age. This enables us to see what's drinking well and what hasn't come on as well as expected.

I've had Yering Station Reserve twice and both times thought it nice wine without wanting to buy any although I know it's had raves elsewhere. So what gives?

Fifteen good palates shows there's no right or wrong with wine, it's just what you like. We all have different tolerances to fruit, oak, acid, tannin alcohol etc. At almost every tasting we'll have wines that garner both Most Preferred and Least Preferred votes, different strokes for different folks.

The two Super Shiraz tastings were a great chance to look at some wines, particularly 2002s, that have had rave revues and compare them side by side. On that score they were highly successful, I hope Ian's notes were enjoyed and put some perspective on this plethora of top class Shiraz we are currently enjoying.

FWIW, I thought the picks were the 02 Hanisch, 02 Gibson Old Vine, 02 Kaesler Old Vine and 02 Liebich Darkie (CWs Block).

n4sir wrote:In regard to the Calliope, probably what distanced me from the rest of the panel was the alcohol. Wicko remarked about being surprised at the 16% level and that it hid it very well, while I thought it stuck out a mile. In these events featuring massive amounts of fruit, tannin and oak, I seem to be quite sensitive (and critical) to the increased alcohol levels. In the cases of the Calliope and the Kaesler Old Vine two weeks ago, I'd guess that would be the major sticking point in my assessments, especially when I'm splitting hairs in order to give each wine a rank in the time allotted.

Cheers
Ian

Ian: This is very interesting. Given that this is blind tasting I'd like to know how you are detecting the alcohol. In some cases it can be obvious (a prickling of the nose, a suggestion of pepper, or a definite burn at the back of the throat) but a well balanced wine should be able to hide, or at least integrate, its alcohol – or so the dogma goes. However alcohol is one of, if not, the most volatile components in wine, and so detecting it should not be a difficult problem. After all most of us can describe just about everything else in a wine! But I think a lot of folks, me included, are often surprised by the level of alcohol in some wines. So, for me at least, detecting the level of alcohol has become a bit of a quandary particularly in recent years as the level of alcohol has begun to increase.

IÂ’d be interested to hear how confident others are about their ability to identify the level of alcohol in a wine, without resorting to the label!

Mike

707 wrote:Ric, you're on the mark as usual. Blacktongues is a group of 15 highly educated palates of all persuasions that have been doing these tastings for almost 20 years.

When the Blacktongues assess/taste/vote on a wine is there agreement that you are looking at quality/longterm potential as opposed to scoring the wines as they are drinking now? Or are there other criteria?

Mike

Mike, firstly on alcohol levels, interesting topic as like all components of a wine, various people have different tolerances and abilities to detect.

I think high alcohol levels only show up when there's a lack of other balancing components in the wine. Like most people I've had 14% look hot and 16.5% look perfectly normal and balanced. As for guessing levels, I think just about everyone would miss the mark because of those factors. Do high alcohol wines age well? I think the panel is still out on this one albeit some hotties have fallen apart prematurely. Again I think it's all about balance in the wine.

Voting is purely on how you feel about the wine at the time of tasting. Most of the Blacktongues make allowances for youth and potential in their purchasing habits but vote on how they show on the night. That said there's many a wine that looked good early and was still a cracker in maturity. I personally don't subscribe to the theory that big oak etc will integrate. The best mature wines I've had have always looked fairly balanced as youngsters.

Voting as always shows personal preferences, even Show judges disagree!

When the Blacktongues assess/taste/vote on a wine is there agreement that you are looking at quality/longterm potential as opposed to scoring the wines as they are drinking now?

I tend to try to take both into consideration, but ultimately the earlier drinking option will probably win out on the night, and the cellaring special will get a special mention to that effect. The 2002 Magpie Estate was a freak last week, as it seemed to have both immediate enjoyment and also the facets for a long cellaring future (tannin structure, length, acid balance, fruit power and a hint of VA to boot). The Fox Creek needed more time to show where it was going - I could get the structure, but little else in the time available.

Mike, firstly on alcohol levels, interesting topic as like all components of a wine, various people have different tolerances and abilities to detect.

I think high alcohol levels only show up when there's a lack of other balancing components in the wine. Like most people I've had 14% look hot and 16.5% look perfectly normal and balanced.

I think the 2002 Mamre Brook Shiraz is a classic example of that. The first time I tried it I thought I could get a hint of that 15% alcohol, but the lush fruit soaked it up quite quickly. In the last two tastings I haven't noticed, and I got quite a shock when I found out it was 15% at the end of that tasting!

Others have been ridiculously hot at around 14 to 14.5% due to lack of fruit/balance. While I don't conciously try to look for/guess the alcohol level in a wine, in these line-ups of heavy hitters some seem to stand out to me, and when I'm splitting hairs to determine a ranking they usually suffer for it.

Cheers
Ian