The Auswine Forum

99 St Halletts Barossa Cab Sav.

Reasonbly new to wine, Need help with this one.

Found this while out of town, Had $7.00 off down to $19.95 nzd. Thought it would be worth a go. This wine had never been laid down as the cork was very dry and broke in half on the way out but got it all out Sucessfully in the end.
Purple to Dark red in colour ,Did'nt seem to show any Bricking? had blackfruit on the nose but on the palate it lacked in fruit and still had some quite a bit of Tannin, Proberly just past it

Heavy layer of Sediment and not Decantered, Sould I have given it time to show it self?

Does anyone know about this one.

Have had a look at the St Hallets Website and can't find any info on the wine. Maybe they have discontinued making this one?

Past it? I'm not sure it sounds like that, but I don't know the label. As the nose was good, I'd plump for it being closed rather than oxidised, faded or TCA tainted (aka corked). There are people here who are better judges than me though.

With strong tannins, they can dominate the fruit and often these wines will open up a bit in glass or decanter. Often worth popping the glass to one side, or pouring into a jug or decanter, then returning it to the glass. If it's tasting worse, then chances are it is over the hill. However putting some air into the wine can release the flavours if it's very tight.

The other side of this, is that many people enjoy their cab's and shiraz's young when the fruit is very vibrant and slugging it out with tannin and acidity. Quite a few wines slip into a hole when the fruit starts to lessen before the tannins and acidity soften. Often the balance returns, though in some instances the fruit dies long before the tannins lessen. One of my favourite wines is Barolo and it's much more of a borderline battle (in fact the fruit is often never very strong, but that's the style dictated by the grape).

Anyway, if you get something like this again, give the wine a bit of air and see what happens.

regards

Ian

As I said I'm reasonbly new to wine and I'm trying a few different thing at the moment. I have just brought a decanter so will give these older wines a bit of air as you say.

Thanks for your Reply.

Cheers,
Nick.

Nick,

Found this review on Sue Courtney's site:

http://www.wineoftheweek.com/tastings/0207hallett.html

Regards,

Nayan