The Auswine Forum

2002 Brown Brothers Cabernet Sauvignon – Victoria - 14.5%:
Medium bodied. Ripe blackberry and blackcurrant with a herbaceous haze on the middle palate. The front palateÂ’s ripeness and mid-palate complexities seem a bit disjoined. The finish has a slightly acidic lemon but also displays a nice vanilla finish aided by pleasant, fine tannin. Agreeable but nothing special. 15/20.

Adair

Edited once to correct name

Have you try their Patricia yet?
Brilliant wine that outgunned those Coonawarra & MRiver icons IMO.

Dear guest,
you must be marketing manager for Beige Bros.
The Patricias I've seen are green,weedy and hard,whereas the good West aussies have structure and ripeness.



Cheers


Smithy

Smithy, which vintage? I'm refering to the 2000.
Suggest a retasting.

I didnt think much of the 2000.

Brown Bros 2000 Patricia Cabernet Sauvignon Vic 2004 sells for $44.95 at CD. A varietal Cabernet nose showing blackcurrant, cigar box, chocolate and mint; the deep, pure fruit express itself as mulberry and brambly black fruit which has good persistence but stops half way back on the palate despite the abundant, drying, puckering tannins. Ample in weight with an agreeable complexity its rated as Recommended with ** for value, I am not sure where this wine is going.

I didn't like the 2000 Patricia cab either - at all - though I know a fair few folk who do, so I've casually wondered if my bottle was representative. The 2001 though is a better wine - it still wouldn't outgun coonawarra or MR, but it's a credible effort, ripe, smooth, varietal, and it will age. A good medium-level wine, over-priced yet still satisfying to drink and-or cellar.

B

I didn't like the 2000 Patricia cab either - at all - though I know a fair few folk who do, so I've casually wondered if my bottle was representative. The 2001 though is a better wine - it still wouldn't outgun coonawarra or MR, but it's a credible effort, ripe, smooth, varietal, and it will age. A good medium-level wine, over-priced yet still satisfying to drink and-or cellar.

CM

Saw both the 00 and 01.
Not serious premium style reds in the top Coonawarra or MR.
Why spend $40+ when you can get Majella 02 for sub 30.

The only good thing I've seen from BB's I regularly like is their noble Riesling, and thats serious good wine.

My Mama tought me "if you can't say anything nice...."
Cheers
Smithy

I don't love the patricia noble but I do like the patricia sparkling - the best BB wine by a country mile in my books.

CM.

Campbell,
seen some good BB sparklings and seen some ordinary ones.
The trouble is they all carry the same label, perhaps its the fermented in this bottle thing which causes the massive variation.
Anyway for a few extra dollars you can drink French Vintage which are absolute rippers, from some classic Champagne years. The 95s and 96's we've had lately are crackers, Moets/ Veuves / Pols.

Cheers
Smithy

I agree with Campbell on the Patricia Sparkling - a very good sparkler that deserves to be considered among Australia's best. Also agree with Smithy re. the Noble Riesling - lower in alcohol and lighter bodied than most Aussie sweet wines - bit like a German Beerenauslese - good stuff.

The rest of the range is a bit average - though I think the experiments with Graciano and Tempranillo are interesting (more interesting than the Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon) albeit a tad ungenerous and lacking fruit at this present stage.

On a separate point, a question for Smithy - what cellaring life would you put on your 2002 and 2003 Reserve Durif? They are both loaded with fruit, tannin and alcohol and should age well. However, my only concern is that the alcohol may show once the fruit starts to fade? Am I best off enjoying the wine relatively young (say 3-5 years) with a bit of meat to soften the tannins, or are the wines best left untouched for 8-10 years?

Cheers
Phil (Shorten) - sorry - I forgot my password and username details....

smithy

yeah but for you winemakers hauling in all the big bucks up in rutherglen an extra 20 bucks for Pol sounds like nothing. For us lowly writerly hacks it sounds like a lot.

Actually, you're right about needing to know which are the good bottles - I got a shock when I opened a bottle of the patricia sparkling a couple of weeks ago - it was bloody fabulous. It was an aged release. I've had other bottles of pat sp that weren't anything near as good.

actually, give me the sparklings of Larmandier-Bernier - now that is good gear.

cm.

Campbell,
There are people out there who give bottles of special barrells, show samples etc to exulted scribes and leave the mug punters to buy the wines with the same label with their hard-earned.

A lesser example of this is where a writer is sent the better of several bottlings (perhaps with better oak) or the oldest of several tirages of bubbly.

Personally, I think this sucks......we show what we sell.

Cheers
Smithy