The Auswine Forum

A great night with good food, good wine and good company at T-Chow. Fourteen of us gathered and shared some interesting wines of which the pick of the bunch were:-
Molly Dooker Carnival of Love 2005 Shiraz. Alcohol quite evident but incredible fruit weight manages to hold it together (Thanks Gavin!)
Dalwhinnie Shiraz 2005. Great fruit and balance with that elusive characteristic - finesse.
Samuel's Gorge Shiraz [b]2004 - Rich spicy blackberry and chocolate
Kooyonga Pinot Noir 2004 - Good cherry flavours with good layering of earthy characters below.
Chateau Malartic Lagraviere 1978 (Graves) - wonderful cherry flavours which went flat if not drunk quickly. A top up from the magnum returned wine to flavoursome again (Thanks N4sir)
Alto Moncayo Grenache 2002 (Spain) Soft savoury flavours made this grenache very desirable unlike many of the sweet Aussie grenaches.
The night finished with three very young VPs which were very approachable considering their age:-
Coates Shiraz VP 2005 which should be renamed RTDVP (Ready to drink VP) as is was soft and fruity with the spirit beautiully integrated already. (Thanks to Duanne Coates)
Winter Creek Shiraz VP 2006 - Spirit more evident (but this is only 1 year old for heavens sake!) Good fruit. (Thanks to David Cross)
Troy Kalleske VP 2005 - Wonderful fruit with good spirit. How do these winemakers make VPs so approachable, so young? No need to cellar for 20 years anymore!

A few disappointments:-
Parker Coonawarra Cab 1999 - corked
Parker Coonawarra Cab 1998 - flat (corked without the taint?)
Noons Eclipse Grenache 2001 - Alcohol, VA and more alcohol - undrinkable!

A great night and I'm sure Ian will provide complete tasting notes. Thanks for doing all the organising Ian. Once again T-Chow did a great job - good service, good food (Thanks Nayan for doing all the ordering) and an amazing bill of $26 a head. I think we should stay there in future.

I'm in the middle of typing up the tasting notes as we speak - with 24 wines it's a lot of work, plus I've got last Wednesday's Blacktongues Chardonnay notes too...

One thing I did miss out on was the name of the option wine Chas brought - it was only at our table with the foil on and I never got a look what it exactly was. I only heard it was a 1997 CDP.

I hope to finish the notes off and have them up in the next couple of days - that's subject to my ISP who I've had a nightmare week with. They've switched to one centralised dial-up number which has been overloading - it's either continually engaged or slower than a snail stoned on vallium when I do connect up. It's hardly "internet that flies", and their customer support to date has been terrible.

Cheers,
Ian

Ps. I found the Mollydooker Carnival of Love undrinkable, and I don't think it got one positive comment at our table - just goes to show what a polarising wine it really is.

I think the Dalwhinnie was a 2000 Chas, it was my personal WOTN.

I was suprised by how pleasant the Carnival of Love was actually.

Looking forward to the tasting notes Ian, although I am sure I won't agree with half of them

A great night. Good food,good wine and wonderful company. Agree that the Carnival of Love is undrinkable. If I want sweet soy sauce it's in the food and not in the glass.

Look forward to the tasting notes.

Yes you're right Mark, it was the 2000 Dalwhinnie Shiraz (my typo). And it was my WOTN too.
My masked wine was a 1997 'Chateau Papes' Chateau Neuf du Papes but all 13 people thought it was an Aussie wine! Are the French copying our wine styles???

Absolutely agreed that it was a great night - good food, wine & company, and a great argument to do it a little more often. Many thanks to Ian for organising and Nayan for ordering. Thanks also to the staff at T-Chow, who didn't formally kick us out until we begrudgingly left around 1am!

Vibes more than formal notes follow, I was having too much fun to take serious notes!

Highlights
2000 Dalwhinnie Shiraz - my WOTN, 1st time I've tried this wine. Every time I try a top-notch Victorian Shiraz (Seppelt St Peters and Mitchelton Print recently) I'm blown away by their beautiful deep fruit without overbearing oak. Will be seeking out some more of this wine soon.
1996 E&E Shiraz - edged the 2000 vintage (which was also extremely good) due to a little greater complexity.
2000 E&E Shiraz - maybe a little too eager to please with its in-your-face fruit, but extremely good nonetheless.
2004 Samuel's Gorge Shiraz - still haven't had a bad wine from this place - gorgeous black fruit, a little spice, should be drinking well for at least the next five years.
2004 Kooyonga Pinot Noir - sensational depth of fruit flavours.
2005 Coates Shiraz VP - smooth, sumptuous, probably drank more of it than I should have near the end of the night. Just edged the Winter Creek Shiraz VP for my palate due to the spirit poking out on the latter, but I guess both will mellow further with age.

Other Thoughts
2005 Mollydooker Carnival Of Love Shiraz - I thought caramel rather than sweet soy sauce. Certainly not undrinkable to my palate, but I'd struggle with more than a glass & I can't think of anything I'd eat with it (maybe cheescake!). Interesting for novelty value rather than top quality, I do wonder what a foreigner would make of this being reviewed by Parker as the top Australian red of last year. Certainly not representative of what I feel like is the best we have to offer.
2001 Noon Eclipse - maybe faulty? Couldn't get any fruit out of this, just alcohol. I generally really enjoy the Eclipse, so was quite surprised with this showing.
2001 Tyrrells Vat 1 Semillon - seemed to be a little in-between, not as much zip as younger vintages I've tried, but very few developed characteristics. Nice enough, just a tad simple.
1999 Parker 1st Growth Cabernet - definitely faulty, lucky I brought a back-up!

We'll definitely need some better planning for next time - two whites and one pinot out of 24 bottles was a little out of balance.

Thanks again everyone, catch you at the next off-line...

Cheers
Nick

Nick wrote:We'll definitely need some better planning for next time - two whites and one pinot out of 24 bottles was a little out of balance.

Cheers
Nick

I think 707 would agree in full ... drop these three and the mix would have been just about perfect for him!

Thanks Ian for getting the evening sussed out, I had a great time!

Also... thank you to everyone for coming - I had a better time that a normal Friday night (pub, beer, drinking, lots, taxi, staggering, etc). I'll be at the next one, if I'm in town...

One thing I am concerned about is my head on Sunday. I had a headache that was completely disproportionate to how I was feeling when I got a taxi home... it was very unusual!