TN: 99 E&C Shiraz + Italians for lunch & internet li
Posted: Tue Jun 28, 2005 8:33 pm
It's rare that I eat at a restaurant that's not BYO - this is such an occasion. Rarer still is spending my own money on restaurant's wine offerings - at least that record remained intact! Here are some notes from a corporate lunch - and hence impressions from memory. Jotting notes at the time would have raised some questions that I couldn't have answered with any degree of credibility! I should say that I was responsible for the initial choice of wines, our organizer having downloaded the restaurant's wine list from their internet site, and approached me for suggestions. I didn't realize what transpired afterwards; the internet list was claimed to be out of date, the prices wrong, and so forth. The wines (prices attached) we actually tasted were the following four:
1999 San Margherita Pinot Grigio Valdadige (Fruili Venezia Giulia)($54) - stony and mineral-like aromas, yet soft, without a real edge to it. Some clarity of stony fruit, soft medium length finish. Dry, savoury, but I would have preferred the Soave (see below)
2002 Bridgewater Mill Chardonnay ($48) - just the one glass; darker straw/pale yellow, after the Italian grigio the oaky notes on the aroma were quiet pronounced, but objectively it wasn't overdone. The fruit was pretty simple and short; your basic stone fruit and melon flavours, no great interest to speak of.
1999 Edwards & Chaffey Shiraz (McLaren Vale) ($74) Again incorrectly supplied - I'd suggested the cabernet in the hope of getting a wine with some structure. The shiraz is blue/black, even at this age, with a little fading at the meniscus. The nose is all rich tar and licorice, no doubt about the warm climate origins of this. There's a little tannins remaining on the palate. But other than that trhe wine is almost without structure - a wash of ripe fruit lacking much acidic backbone. It's surprisingly light hot and hollow on the palate - and at $74 exactly not what I wanted to have served.
1995 Marchesi Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva (Tuscany) ($80) This has distinct onion-skin touches about the pale brick colour, and a slightly oxidative aroma over the tart light fruit nose. It gradually sweetened as it as in the glass, and followed up with a dry, dusty finely astringent palate. Quite persistent, medium bodied and food friendly, it nevertheless suggested that holding longer is of no real benefit.
Not one of these wines matched the internet list on which I based my original suggestions. The first wine was substituted (after acknowledgement) for the 2003 Pieropan Soave Classico, the Bridgewater Mill ordered was the 2000 vintage, the E & C requested was the Cabernet, not Shiraz, and the Antinori from the 'net was the 1998. OK, it was a corporate lunch; we're not exactly talking about substituting an 81 Latour for the 82; and I don't think anyone else noticed anything, but as the wine geek I was distinctly unimpressed. The lesson is this: either have an up-to-date internet wine list, or NONE AT ALL. Even the downloaded list horrified me with the mark-ups; Henschke Tilly's at $38, Coldstream Hills Pinot at $54, 99 Bin 389 for $74. Yikes! I laboured long over the list to find the VFM (value-for-money) wines - I dread to think what the 'aged and rare' list was like. The restaurant boasts some kind of Tucker Seabrook "wine list award' - I wondered whether this was simply because they source so much of their wine from that organization!
I have a 'wine experience' at a pricey restaurant, I think of the wines at home in the cellar, and I just want to become a better cook...
To their credit, they did manage to accurately serve 28 people with three courses each without once holding a food auction at the table. That was impressive...
Cheers,
Graeme
1999 San Margherita Pinot Grigio Valdadige (Fruili Venezia Giulia)($54) - stony and mineral-like aromas, yet soft, without a real edge to it. Some clarity of stony fruit, soft medium length finish. Dry, savoury, but I would have preferred the Soave (see below)
2002 Bridgewater Mill Chardonnay ($48) - just the one glass; darker straw/pale yellow, after the Italian grigio the oaky notes on the aroma were quiet pronounced, but objectively it wasn't overdone. The fruit was pretty simple and short; your basic stone fruit and melon flavours, no great interest to speak of.
1999 Edwards & Chaffey Shiraz (McLaren Vale) ($74) Again incorrectly supplied - I'd suggested the cabernet in the hope of getting a wine with some structure. The shiraz is blue/black, even at this age, with a little fading at the meniscus. The nose is all rich tar and licorice, no doubt about the warm climate origins of this. There's a little tannins remaining on the palate. But other than that trhe wine is almost without structure - a wash of ripe fruit lacking much acidic backbone. It's surprisingly light hot and hollow on the palate - and at $74 exactly not what I wanted to have served.
1995 Marchesi Antinori Chianti Classico Riserva (Tuscany) ($80) This has distinct onion-skin touches about the pale brick colour, and a slightly oxidative aroma over the tart light fruit nose. It gradually sweetened as it as in the glass, and followed up with a dry, dusty finely astringent palate. Quite persistent, medium bodied and food friendly, it nevertheless suggested that holding longer is of no real benefit.
Not one of these wines matched the internet list on which I based my original suggestions. The first wine was substituted (after acknowledgement) for the 2003 Pieropan Soave Classico, the Bridgewater Mill ordered was the 2000 vintage, the E & C requested was the Cabernet, not Shiraz, and the Antinori from the 'net was the 1998. OK, it was a corporate lunch; we're not exactly talking about substituting an 81 Latour for the 82; and I don't think anyone else noticed anything, but as the wine geek I was distinctly unimpressed. The lesson is this: either have an up-to-date internet wine list, or NONE AT ALL. Even the downloaded list horrified me with the mark-ups; Henschke Tilly's at $38, Coldstream Hills Pinot at $54, 99 Bin 389 for $74. Yikes! I laboured long over the list to find the VFM (value-for-money) wines - I dread to think what the 'aged and rare' list was like. The restaurant boasts some kind of Tucker Seabrook "wine list award' - I wondered whether this was simply because they source so much of their wine from that organization!
I have a 'wine experience' at a pricey restaurant, I think of the wines at home in the cellar, and I just want to become a better cook...
To their credit, they did manage to accurately serve 28 people with three courses each without once holding a food auction at the table. That was impressive...
Cheers,
Graeme
The Antinori Chianti Riserva from 1995 also sounds to me as if it might not have had the greatest cellaring, this was a pretty good vintage & even though I haven't drunk this wine for about 4 years, it looked to me to have many years ahead of it, from memory 
, and shouldn't have been showing oxidative notes, not yet anyway. Can you tell us the name of the restaurant, please?
