The Auswine Forum

This was officially a WLDG offline but Graeme Gee, David Lole and myself (and Tony?) post here often enough and it probably a little more interesting to the aussies anyway. There was a couple of other posters from here that bailed so also so they can see what they missed out on! It was organised to meet up with a couple of Americans visiting from Boston, Thor and Teresa Ivanson, very well known on WLDG.

In attendance were Graeme and Judith, Thor and Teresa, David and Tony from Winewise (Sorry, didn't get Tony's last name) and myself and Lisa. We all rocked up to Pazzo in Crown St, Surry Hills with masked bottles in hand.

My notes from the night:

1990 Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Millenaires
A decent yellow colour as to be expected from a 15 year old champagne. Honey and yeasty, brioche flavours dominate. Slightly flat finish and probably nearing the end of it's drinking window. David said this was still available and while it was very nice, it was just past it's peak in my opinion.

2003 Peregrine Riesling
Pale yellow colour. Very fresh pear and lemon notes with a strong acid backbone. Very clean wine and really lovely. A very good riesling indeed. Brought over by Thor and Theresa from their travels through NZ.

2000 Stonecroft Hawke's Bay Gerwertztraminer.
A sweet rose nose that didn't deliver on the palate. Some apple in there but just too much acid out of balance. No great depth of flavour and no one really enjoyed it. Bought by Thor at some dodgey grocers in NZ or something. Not sure if this was storage problems or just an out of balance wine.

1992 Tyrrels Vat 1 Semillon
Medium yellow colour. This was served blind but to the aussies it was obviously a semillon. Threw the guests a bit though. Very buttery flavours which could have one thinking it was a chardonnay but it was also a bit spritzy and had a clean soft acid. There was some giveaway lemon there still and it was still very tight. David thought there was some grass there too. I would have said (and did) that it was a lot younger than it was but David got the vintage and wine spot on. Well done! This was a great wine and has at least 5 - 10 years until it peaks. This was a fantastic example of a good Hunter Semillon.

1997 Mount Mary Quintet Cabernets
Red, purple colour. Mushroomy nose and very soft and bordeaux like in my opinion. Very mellow and maybe just a little bit thin but with a long finish. Felt a lot older than a 97. I had this vintage late last year and it was showing a bit fresher and more robust really. David said it was full of DMS. A very elegant drink but not quite as good as my last bottle.

2001 Castagna Genesis
Quite a deep colour. I felt it was a little green on my initial smell making me think it was a cabernet but it turned out to be a shiraz viogner. Could not pick up any apricot though - more just a faint floral hint. Graeme thought it a bit hollow in the mid palate. A nice wine but maybe a bit young in the company making it feel a bit jarring or something.

1994 Irvine Grand Merlot.
Brick red colour with brown tinges at the edges. Slight honey nose and very smooth drinking. Perfectly integrated and at its peak. Obviously had a bit of age on it. This had the lot and was drinking very well. For me wine of the night but then I brought it so I might be biased! This one had everyone fooled during the options though although Graeme eventually got it after saying it can't be bloody merlot, Australia doesn't make any decent merlot!

1995 Cullens Cabernet Merlot
Solid red colour. Much fruitier and felt a lot younger and bigger than the merlot. Higher alcohol at 13.5%. I managed to guess the region, vintage and grape but was a few properties out with the producer thinking it was a Moss Wood. Another lovely wine drinking well now but could easily see at least another five years in the cellar.

1997 Veritas Hanisch Shiraz
David initially thought this had a bordeaux like nose. Purple red colour. Higher alcohol but integrated and mellowing out nicely. Plenty of licorice and plums and a bit of VA. Another very nice drink indeed and David eventually guessed this one down to the label but not the vintage.

Was there another wine here?

1939 Seppelt Para Port
This was opened the night before or maybe on saturday but it was still showing very well. I've had the 100 year old 1904 recently and this wasn't a patch on that. Much lighter bodied and nowhere near the pure intensity of flavour but this is a fraction of the cost and it's great to be able to drink a living tresure like this. Quite brown toffee colour now and plenty of alcohol on the nose and palate. Plenty of aged rancio characteristics. Long finish.

Like I said, this was a great night and many thanks go to Graeme for organising the offline. It was a good sized gathering allowing us plenty of wine each and the opportunity to refill on our favourites. The company was fantastic and the conversation flowed easily the whole night. Amazingly, we managed to cover most of the regions with a benchmark wine, with the notable exception being a clare riesling. A very good tour of wine in Australia for our visitors. Great restaurant too and very good value.

Cheers,

Kris.

Thanks for posting, Kris. I've added a few observations that can be read in conjunction with your notes.

1990 Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Millenaires

Superb toasty nose with the (creme) brioche you note interplaying with some incredible complex yeast autolysis characters and a hint of roasted hazelnut. The creaminess of the mousse in the mouth was a standout and the flatness you picked (I also wrote this exact descriptor early on) improved out of sight in the last few sips to reveal a most surprising finish of mouthfilling, almost fluffy, acidity. I rated this, in the end, as Excellent. Definitely a drink now proposition. Thor is to be congratulated on picking this as a 15 year old French Champagne.

2003 Peregrine Riesling

Intense lime pastille, passionfruit and the first hints of toast and petrol. Tight, pristine, steely palate with a terrific acid cut. Brilliantly balanced with great focus and a long cellaring potential. An Excellent example.

2000 Stonecroft Hawke's Bay Gerwertztraminer.

The concensus sounded that ordinary, I skipped this one and am now thankful I did.

1992 Tyrrels Vat 1 Semillon

Excellent note, Kris. I have a lot of this in the cellar and agree it needs a lot more time. FWIW, Tony snitched the remnants as we left which we left overnight at room temperature and drank a splash with a bite to eat at lunchtime today. No oxidation, much fuller, most complete, profound and worthy of an Outstanding rating.

1997 Mount Mary Quintet Cabernets

Agree with the Bordeaux correlation. The DMS didn't offend, manifesting itself as sweet blackcurrant/cassis, asparagus and green bean. Not the greatest offering from this revered Yarra Valley maker, but still very good and will probably improve in the short term.

2001 Castagna Genesis

Marvellous effort from relatively young vines. Floral lift, spicy blackberries and savoury oak proved winners on the nose. The ripe larged-scaled powdery tannins and bright acids imposed themselves a tad too early in the mouth at first. This imbalance corrected itself with extra breathing time and just got better and better as the night wore on. A wonderful wine with a terrific future.


1994 Irvine Grand Merlot.

You got me on this one, my friend! At least I got the year right! Drinking very well - an excellent example, although the oak threw me a bit. Mature.


1995 Cullens Cabernet Merlot

My red contribution and far more youthful and unready than the last few bottles I've tried. Some eerie comparisons to a classy young Bordeaux in my notes with a solid core of jammy blackcurrants, green olives, cedary oak, sweet earth and robust tannin and a whopping long finish. I reckon it needs 10 years minimum.

1997 Veritas Hanisch Shiraz

Very impressive, indeed! With the overt, but balanced, coconut American oak and sweet creamy old vine tarry/blackberry fruit I thought this a Barossa or Mclaren Vale Shiraz from the start, I think? Don't know where the Bordeaux bit came from, but will take your word on it. Lovely leathery/cedary/licorice/bitter chocolate secondary characters in there, too. A real surprise packet for the vintage and absolutely craps all over the '98 version of the same label. Excellent stuff!

1939 Seppelt Para Port

Good note, although the oxidation from being opened 48 hours earlier had really taken a hold, IMHO. Still a treat to taste something of such great age and complexity.

Great to finally catch up with the Iverson's and the local Sydney gang at last, too! A top night!

Still working on my notes! Slightly divergent opinions on a few wines, but nothing chronic! We may be setting a record - it sounds like 5 people took notes at an 8-person dinner!!

cheers,
Graeme

David, re the bordeaux nose on the veritas, I'm sure you took one sniff and initially went Bordeaux. I had that written down against the Veritas and I can remember at the time thinking "wrong", as it was a shiraz but I also know you immediately came around and then got the whole thing right. Still, I may have been thinking of another wine.

Did I miss one out? I had the feeling there was one other at the end of the night.

Looking forward to your divergent opinion, Graeme!

bacchaebabe wrote:David, re the bordeaux nose on the veritas, I'm sure you took one sniff and initially went Bordeaux. I had that written down against the Veritas and I can remember at the time thinking "wrong", as it was a shiraz but I also know you immediately came around and then got the whole thing right. Still, I may have been thinking of another wine.

Did I miss one out? I had the feeling there was one other at the end of the night.

Looking forward to your divergent opinion, Graeme!

All present and accounted for, Kris.

OK, so here's what I came up with...

1990 Piper Hiedsieck Blanc de Millesaire (Champagne)
Aromas of smoky biscuit, yeast and some cheesiness. Full rich finish, with quite soft acid. Maybe at its peak now? That prompted some discussion. I liked the wine very much.

Brought to us live from New Zealand by our intrepid travellers was
2003 Peregrine Riesling (Central Otago)
A slatey, apple nose, with a real sign of sweetness (and what seemed to me a faint whiff of sulphur). Rose and musk notes follow - it doesn't seem a million miles from a Gewurz. The palate is varietally correct, with good positive acid. I didn't find it as dry as other tasters, but it suffered nothing for that. Largely front palate balance, quite fruity. Nice wine indeed.

and
2000 Stonecroft Gewurztraminer (Hawkes Bay)
A muted, faintly dirty nose. Smelt exhausted, if that makes sense. Somewhat dull and flat on the palate. Probably just too old. Failed to find a defender at the table.

From here on the wines were served blind, with the occasional detour into Options, which only served to embarrass most of us most of the time.
1992 Tyrrells Vat 1 Semillon (Hunter)
Lovely tight honey-on-toast nose. Acid on palate is soft yet forceful. Medium body only, with super balance across the palate. Plenty of time left for this wine, I think.

1997 Mount Mary Quintet (Yarra Valley)
Mid red, tending toward the paler end of the spectrum. The nose was quite advanced, with blackcurrant hiding beneath smoky, dusty, faintly leather & cedar notes. I though it a little under-fruited (Thor: [i]*snort*[i] You Australians!) but the palate picked up considerably. Mid-weight, soft fruit notes, but a terrific balanced spread of flavours and textures evenly across the tongue. Very good, and will no doubt hold a while, despite it being slightly more advanced than I expected.

2001 Castagna Genesis [Shiraz-Viognier] (Beechworth)
Very dark red, and a nose that positively erupted with exotic fruit and spice aromas after the Quintet. Even that failed to give away the Viognier component, which in retrospect is obvious. There are chocolate and coffee aromas here too. The palate is warm and quite soft, the tannins being oddly reticent. Very luxurious wine.

1994 James Irvine Grand Merlot (Eden Valley)
Mid red. A developed, yet exquisitely aged nose of "fruity Bordeaux"; chocolate/blackcurrant notes, plus what seemed like quality cedary oak. Tannins are fine, palate balance is really terrific. Very sweet fruit showing at a perfect age with soft secondary characters on the palate. A real eye-opener and easily the best Australian merlot I've ever tasted; I had it picked for a top quality Margaret River cabernet! Suspect this vintage may have been around the peak for the Irvine Merlot - it's a very low profile wine these days, and rarely mentioned in any lists of great local wines. Sports one of the most garish labels of all time, incidentally - welding goggles recommended. For me, this and Mount Mary were 'red-of-the-night'.

1995 Cullen Cabernet Merlot (Margaret River)
Special award for 'polarising wine of the evening'. My blind verbatim note was: 'Lots of vanilla US oak. Red berries, tannic, warm. Somewhat hollow palate.' What had me baffled was what I felt to be a very large mid-palate donut hole. Perhaps it was exaggerated by the wall of tannins surrounding it - I don't know. I am familiar with the reputation of this wine - and I was somewhat disappointed by it last year as well. Perhaps it's just too young even at 10 years (yet a '90 Reserve tasted a few years ago was exquisite), but this wine seems to be right in my blind-spot. Makes me worry about the 99 and 01 I have in the cellar! And yeah, I know its French oak! Think I'm out of practice at serious tasting.

1997 Veritas Hanisch Shiraz (Barossa)
After the coal-face black fruit profile of the Cullen, this was like fairy floss. The colour was deep red, but the nose was of sweet blackcurrant with distinct bubble-gum notes. You'd swear there was a solid dollop of Grenache in here. The palate is fruity indeed, and very sweet (not RS, obviously). It's very in-your-face; not subtle at all. If I call it coarse, I mean in a boisterous sort of way, rather than particularly unrefined. The balance across the palate is pretty good though - this is no front-palate stormer. At eight years it's still pretty fresh, too.

1939 Seppelt Para Port (Barossa)
Deep orange. The typical old Para nose of burnt toffee and crème brulee. This is very intense, yet the tawny old fruit is able to withstand the intensely volatile acidity and powerful alcohol. There's not a lot of back palate, but it doesn't really detract from the finish, which is predictably long. I didn't notice any particular degredation between tasting on Saturday and Monday nights, but I concede the wine will grow stale the longer it remain undrunk. Very good.

Pazzo's food was OK, although they seemed to struggle with delivering everyone's meal simultaneously, which is a shame. And the private courtyard was somewhat noisy, though that was largely due to the weather! It was good to finally meet David and Tony, and catch up with K&L as well. And to host such affable visitors, naturally. Offlines are such civilised things! As mentioned elsewhere, I think five people taking notes at an 8-person offline might be a record!

Cheers,
Graeme