Old Adam Hysteria.

[Dr - 307]

On my way in to work this morning on 3AW's Buy Swap and Sell a guy is selling 2004 Old Adam's for $400 a pop. Lordy lordy. The world is truly going mad.
Any other Old Adam stories?

Dr - 307.

[Ian S]

Probably just that until the recent pronouncement by Halliday, I don't think I can ever recall anyone ever trying to secure a bottle of any Bremerton wine.

I'm trying to recall such behaviour before and can't recall any, however if you're happy with this widening out, then I'd be intrigued to hear of other instances where an Aussie wine scribe had prompted large numbers of people to hunt down a particular wine. In order to avoid the obvious it would be worth by-passing any Parker-frenzy wines or JWT winners as both instances are a little more obvious 'trophy hunting'. I'm really intrigued to peoples recollections of this phenomenum occuring before.

regards

Ian

[Craig(NZ)]

I cant really remember any instances of this sort of frenzy in new zealand. i guess 98 grange was one, but i think it was mainly australians chasing it to be shipped back to australia.

As far as NZ wines go Dry River has in the past come out lop-sided in Supply/ Demand equation.

Would be good to get a retailers view

[KMP]

The Old Adam does not seem to have made it to the auction or retail level over here (USA) as yet. Parker did give the wine 89 points so a feeding frenzy may not occur if it does get here!!

It does look like to rush to acquire high point Aussie wines may be slowing down. For example Kalleske wines like the Greenock Shiraz are now down below $40USD for the 2005; my retailer had a hard time moving it at $45USD. The first vintages to get here (like 2002) were hard to get and sold for up $100USD. The easy availability might be a measure of increased production but I see that the 2005 wines are sold out on the Kalleske website.

Mike

[TORB]

Mike,

Production of 2002 Kalleske was tiny, hence the scarcity.

Re the Old Adam; PT Barnum was right, there is one born every minute. $400 = more money than wine sense.

[KMP]

Mike,

Production of 2002 Kalleske was tiny, hence the scarcity.

That may be Rick, but interest in Aussie wines seemed to have waned considerably in the last year or so. Kalleske wines have garnered a reputation over here (mainly via Parker) and yet retailers are more than saturated with the recent vintages. More to the point, the retailer I deal with cleared out many of the Aussie wines from his own cellar (which says something in itself) and quite a number of those have been sitting out on the floor of his shop for quite a while now - Greenock Creek, Wild Duck etc. There is a tasting being set up next month of some of the high end Aussie reds. In the past these have been well attended but I'm willing to bet that they might not even get enough takers to go forward.

Wine Australia held a week of events here a month or two ago. The tastings were well attended and the one wine dinner we attended was reasonable (20-30 people) but a couple of other events I put my name down for were cancelled due to lack of interest. That is unusual because San Diego has a lot of interest in wine, and that iterest has been growing over the last couple of years.

Mike

[Dr - 307]

I have to admit that I do keep my eye on Langton's just to see what the market is doing when selecting / trying just because I think that if they hold their value reasonably well then it stands to reason that the greater majority out there like them so they should be good wines. Unlike Yarra Yering who charges $130 for a bottle of Viognier and yet they don't fetch much more than $30 at auction. I did chase down a 2001 Dead Arm 'cause Parker gave it 98/100. That was a long time ago and I've 'wine matured' a lot since then.
I did stop on the way home to get an Old Adam simply because I had never tried one before but the lady at the store said "Yeah, you and everyone else". I reflected for a moment and I too thought the same as Ian S that I couldn't remember a frenzy over Old Adam. I also decided I would take some informed advice and that is that like the Old Adam there are heaps of top wines to come from the great 2004 vintage. Like the 2004 Wirra Woodhenge......absolute pure sex in a glass and I have 6 left. At least I stand a chance of getting lucky.

Dr - 307.

[wineguy]

I know one thing for sure, Bremerton are loving every minute of it!! Good for them I say.

[TORB]

Hi Mike,

Agreed about the lack of interest shown in Oz wines in the US now. Years ago I wrote articles and many posts about my "Parker" fashion theory. Oz wines were the latest and greatest thing in the US due to the Parker hype and huge scores.

People bought the wines in droves, in many cases without trying them. Once they did, many found the wines were not to their style, or felt the scores were too high.

All over the US boards people were then talking about Parker's scores being "generous" when it came to Oz wines.

As time has marched on, there are less and less TN's on Oz wines on the Us forums. Spectator has a bit of Oz interest still, and Squires does too, but that's about all.

Now Oz wines are no longer the "latest fashion."

[GraemeG]

I'm trying to recall such behaviour before and can't recall any, however if you're happy with this widening out, then I'd be intrigued to hear of other instances where an Aussie wine scribe had prompted large numbers of people to hunt down a particular wine.

Not to the same extent, but something happened when Seppelt's 2002 St Peter's was released. I know it was only a very small volume vintage, but the price at auction suddently shot to twice retail, and I don't know which scribe (or was it all of them?) that prompted that.

Speaking of strange things, I see 1986 Wynns Cabernet has sold at Langtons for $140. What's with that? Couple of years ago it was $40-50-odd. Now commanding more than any vintage of John Riddoch? Weird.
cheers,
Graeme

[Dr - 307]

I saw that in the most recent Gourmet Wine Traveller that Huon Hooke rated the Old Adam 91/100. Then again he rated the 2004 Bin 389 a 91/100 also which I really liked. To use a wine that's universally liked as the yardstick he rated the 2005 Shaw & Smith Shiraz a 95/100.
Opinions...Opinions.
Interesting.
Dr - 307.

[n4sir]

I saw that in the most recent Gourmet Wine Traveller that Huon Hooke rated the Old Adam 91/100. Then again he rated the 2004 Bin 389 a 91/100 also which I really liked.

The 2004 Bin 389's most predominant fruit source just happened to be Langhorne Creek (for the first time).

Pure coincidence?

Cheers,
Ian

Ps. The last bottle I was watching of the Old Adam went on eBay for $192.50 a couple of days ago.

I really can't believe just how much this score of JH has hyped the price up to these unbelievable levels (Parker maybe, but does Halliday have any real clout overseas to stir up this sort of demand?).

I wonder if there's any temptaion for the winery to say "the 2005 Old Adam is even better" and then price it accordingly upwards.

[Dr - 307]

Trust your palate I say.
Dr - 307.

[cuttlefish]

It is interesting that people are paying that much for the 2004 Old Adam.
How many people on this forum have tried the wine ?
What were your thoughts?
I was lucky enough to taste it some months back. We drank it up against some pretty big Aussie reds, namely the 2004 Dead Arm, and the 2004 Fox Creek Reserve Shiraz, and a number of others which for the life of me I cannot recall...
On the day, the Fox Creek really stood out for me. Still probably too young to drink, but the fruit quality was there. The Dead Arm was a wine which was good, but just not to my tastes (for whatever reason) on the day. The Old Adam I recall stating had a certain something. A real x-factor, which made it really enjoyable drinking. Having not drunk a lot of wines from Langhorn Creek, I couldn't say if I was just experiencing the regional qualitites of the wine, and enjoying it for that, or whether there really is something particularly special about this one wine....
I hope I'm not adding fuel to the fire by having said that, but maybe I can stifle readers excitement by saying that there are a lot of wines equally as good from all over Australia just waiting for you to find them.

[Ratcatcher]

N4SIR - if they did and it wasn't they would do their credibility a lot of harm if they intend to stay in business for another 20 years. (BTW - Can you stop bidding on the wines I want at Wickmans

I've just got my Halliday Guide and there are plenty of other 97 pointers like the Thomas Hardy that people aren't rushing out to buy. I think Ric was right in his article that the grouping of the Old Adam with Grange and HoG has had a big impact. I wonder if he listed all the 97 point wines in one group alphabetically like this:

Bannockburn Serre
Bremerton Old Adam
Hardys T Hardy
Hewitson Pr Cell Shiraz Mourv
Hill of Grace
Penfolds Grange
Punch Close Pinot
Spinifex Shiraz V
Tucks Ridge Pinot
Tyrells HVD Semillon

without the Old Adam being grouped with those 2 wines whether anyone would have paid so much attention to the Old Adam? The Spinifex is roughly the same price and has equal cellaring potential and the tasting note sounds better.

I'd personally rather pay $90 for Jack Mann or T Hardy than $192 for Old Adam. Having said that I'd happily buy 3 of the Old Adam at the quoted price of $38.

[n4sir]

N4SIR - BTW - Can you stop bidding on the wines I want at Wickmans

(You must have good taste then) :wink:

[wine bloke]

One of those truly memorable moments happened to me the day after The Advertiser did an article about Halliday rating the Old Adam on par with the other two stalwarts. A lady rang my local bottle shop whilst I was there. The conversation went along these lines....

"Do you have any of that Bremmerview Old Shiraz? Yeah, you know the one... the wine that's just like Grange, but only cheaper!"

The fantastic guy that the proprietor is, replied.....

"Aaaww, I'm so sorry, I've just sold my last six pack 5 minutes ago. Yeah, we sold all of the 15 dozen we had in stock this morning."

Never mind that there was less than a palate allocated to S.A. and he only got 2 dozen.

Hey here's an idea.
Lets contact an influential wine writer and a whole heap of struggling wineries.
Put the names of all these wineries in a hat and get the journalist to pick the random winner.
From there the winery has to submit there worst example of booze, so the critic can give it an outrageous score.
Maybe that would make people sit up and take notice, wine lovers find the pick of the bunch first. Let's face it, there were many hardcore hangovers, caused by the sheer will and determination to condition and expose ourselves, to as many varied wine varieties, wine making practices and ideologies.

Has anyone got a ladder? I can't get down off of my soap box.


Cheers, Wine Bloke.

[Dr - 307]

Langton's has 4 x 2004 Old Adams on auction starting at $47 with a price bracket of $56 - $70 and don't forget the added 15% premium. Auction finishes on Sept 24th. I'll update what they fetched.

Cheers,
Dr - 307.