The Auswine Forum

Tasting last night held in the tunnel at Wine vault. Interesting venue and lots of food supplied - very rare these days so appreciated!

05 Gerogery East Homestead merlot
Sweet caramel nose, spicy slightly flat palate.

05 The Blend
90% Cab, 10% Merlot. Slightly medicinal nose. Capsicum and slightly astringent. Wasn't so keen on this right now. Not sure how long ago it was bottled but it felt like it needed a bit of time to come together.

05 Alan's Cabernet Artichoke, minty nose. Very different cabernet from the Coonawarras at the recent roadshow. Quite peppery, spicy palate. Smooth and very good. Very fine tannins. I was very fond of this.

05 Alan's Cabernet Pressings Sweeter, more caramel nose. No mint evident on this one. Dark purple colour - not seeing anything through this one! Slight pepper and very smooth. Much more extracted and full bodied. Quite good indeed.

05 Cab Sav Reserve Deep red purple. A bit more feral and pooey. Also some mint. Very fine tannins. Very bordeaux-like. Has a long life ahead of it. Very fine indeed.

05 Shiraz Malbec 50/50 blend. Sweet spicy nose. More spice on palate but maybe a bit flat. Feels quite hot - alcohol is 14.5%

05 Springflat Shiraz Deep purple red. More savoury nose, maybe a little hot too. Quite astringent palate. More wood and medium tannins here. No obvious fruit flavours coming through. 15.5%. Quite tasty all the same.

05 Shiraz Pressings Purple black colour. 14.5% Slightly astringent. Quite extracted with big pepper flavours. Medium tannins. Bit of a tooth stainer. This one needs some time but will have a wonderful future.

05 Shiraz Reserve 16% Astringent nose and can smell the alcohol. A bit of spicy pepper. This feels like a big and noticable jump in alcohol from the pressings. Quite porty but with a long, long finish and sweet grapey flavour. Will be interested to see how this comes together. I was told the alcohol was actually over 17% but they stopped counting after that. This didn't come from David or Liam though.

04 Duck Muck No Duck Muck made in 05 or 06 so won't be until the 07 releases that we see any more. This was also labelled as 16.5 alcohol and you can smell it on the nose. More fruit on this. Dark purple colour with licorice, anise nose. Long, long finish and stays on the palate for a good 30 seconds. More of everything really with complex berry layers. Clearly needs more time and I'd say this isn't showing quite as well as it did last year just after it had been bottled. Maybe just not quite as fresh but this will be great.

05 Fortified shiraz We (Christo and Cam) had considerable discussion over whether this was corked. No overt mustiness but just a bit flat and muted on the finish. Liam opened another bottle and it was shown to be much fresher and more vibrant. Nice raisin flavours and clean finish. Not the absolute stunner this vintage was last year when I just wanted to guzzle it. It's changed a bit over the year but is still a decent drink.

Anyway, had a great night. Overall impresion is the cabernets are great and the shiraz just build up through the range. Some of the alcohol on the shiraz range is a little bit obvious but doesn't detract too much from the finished product. Couldn't really sit down to drink too much at this stage though. They all need a dark quiet place right now.

Nice one Kris! Thanks. I didn't make it ...and this is 1st year in many didn't buy (what happened to my mailer?). Heard conflicting reports and your notes suggest not as good as previous releases...but then the wines weren't decanted which wouldn't have helped!?

A little birdie tells me James Halliday has gone gangbusters on the 05 WDC in the forthcoming Weekend Australian and didn't find any problems with the AV levels.

PS - Chris, Rhiannon and Cam were looking pretty soggy last night!

Very surprised not to see you there. I think if you gave David a ring he could probably sort you with the wines you may have been interested in. I expect Chris, Cam and Rhiannon gave you a good heads up on the tasting though. Not surprised they were a bit soggy. Quite the portfolio to work through.

Very impressed with the cabernets but the alcohol in some of the shiraz was a bit to contend with. Shame the tastings are done arond delivery time rather than around ordering time as my order wold have probably been quite different. Oh well, it's my experience they all end up being pretty good anyway so I'm not that concerned.

Ive heard a few people now say that they think that Cab S has more potential in Heathcote than Shiraz.
Maybe the winemakers are still working out how to handle it

No mucking about when Duck gets down to business
WINE: James Halliday | September 15, 2007

WILD Duck Creek Estate took the long road -- a very long road -- to become what it is today. David and Diana Anderson bought a block of land in Victoria, 4km southwest of Heathcote, in 1972 but it was not until 1980 that the first vines were planted.
Before as well as after the purchase, Anderson built vineyards for others throughout Victoria and southern NSW, chiefly in the Yarra Valley and Macedon Ranges, during a 30-year period.
It was almost inevitable that he would start winemaking as a hobby in his backyard shed at Hurstbridge, on the eastern outskirts of Melbourne.
Until the plantings of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot, malbec and petit verdot (the five Bordeaux grapes) came into bearing, Anderson sourced small batches of fruit from vineyards close to Hurstbridge.
"Being a fencing contractor, I barely had time to do anything by the book, so I chained our small stainless steel fermenter to our trailer and drove it around the paddock in order to plunge the fruit. Perambulatory fermentation, I called it," Anderson says.
This mixture of highly rustic and carefully thought-out grape growing and winemaking carried through the next 20 or so years. It is a mistake to see Wild Duck Creek Estate solely through the prism of its most celebrated wine, Duck Muck.
The grapes for Alan's cabernets (named after his father) come from four distinct blocks within 2.25ha of the planted area, each with its own characteristics. The low-pH buckshot gravel soil ripens the grapes slowly, with perfect acid retention and a baume of about 13 per cent, resulting in elegant wines with a finished alcohol of about 13.5 per cent (which David would like to see lower still).
The wine spends 18 to 24 months in 100per cent new French oak, mainly from the Nevers forest.
The sweet cassis, blackcurrant and mint of the '04 (still available in limited quantities from the cellar door for about $40, 90 points) will mature well for a decade or more, as a parallel tasting of the '99 proved.
The pride of the fleet (though not the most expensive) is Spring Flat Shiraz, born from the 1ha block at the winery planted in 1988 and used exclusively up to 1996. Since then, five other nearby vineyards have contributed to Spring Flat Shiraz, lifting production to 1800cases (frost permitting). It's here that the subject of alcohol raises its head: the '04 is a massive wine, weighing in at 16 per cent, yet has about 7.5g a litre of acidity and a pH of 3.4.
Those numbers speak of a wine in balance, and David says the grapes are picked without any shrivel; if picked earlier, the acid is too high and the juice with inadequate flavour. Matured in a 50-50 split of French and American oak, it is a luscious, velvety wine with no jammy/confit fruit flavours. Accepting the style, this $55 wine scores 94 points.
Reserve and Pressings shiraz are next in the price tree but it is Duck Muck, about the most unlikely name for a standout wine, that made Wild Duck Creek famous in the American market and, by reflection, here. It had an unlikely genesis.
In 1994, several rows in the Spring Flat Shiraz block were left unpicked when all the fermenters were full. They were forgotten about until, two weeks later, Anderson and long-time friend David McKee stumbled across the rows, which looked somewhat the worse for wear.
Without much hope they picked the grapes and found the must was a mind-boggling 17.5per cent baume with 8g a litre of acidity. The search for a yeast that could ferment a wine with so much potential alcohol succeeded, and McKee scrawled Duck Muck on the end of the new American oak hogshead in which the wine was matured.
It caused a sensation in the US, although for a range of reasons Wild Duck Creek is not exported there any more. Only six vintages have been released ('94, '95, '97, '00, '02 and '04), each of no more than 200 cases.
Even at $300 a bottle there is a queue of restaurateurs, a few fine wine retailers and long-term customers who don't blink at the price tag ... or the name.

FROM THE REGION: 2005 Wild Duck Creek range
THIS week's column was written before I tasted the just-released 2005 wines. The quality and consistency across a range of varieties and alcohol levels is exceptional. It is a hopeless task to discuss each wine, but there is a common factor of luscious, velvety, supple fruit, and in no instance does the alcohol run away with the wine. All except two were 14.5 per cent or less. The two monsters were the 2005 Reserve Shiraz (95 points, $125) with an alcohol level of 16 per cent that contributes sweetness more than heat and does not show dead fruit. The 2005 Spring Flat Shiraz (94 points, $50) comes in at 15.5 per cent but, once again, the velvety array of black fruits simply gives rise to silky mouth-feel. From this point on, the wines range from 14.5per cent to 13.5 per cent, and my points were as follows: 2005 Spring Flat Shiraz Pressings (95 points, $125, 14.5 per cent), the only question being why it was not back-blended with the shiraz; 2005 Yellow Hammer Hill Shiraz Malbec (93 points, $40, 14.5 per cent); 2004 Homestead Merlot (91 points, $30, 13.5per cent); 2005 The Blend (cabernet merlot, 95 points, $40, 14.5 per cent); 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon (95 points, $130, 14 per cent); and 2005 Alan's Vat 1 Cabernet (92 points, $55, 14 per cent). Phone or fax: (03) 54333133.

Hi all,

Picked up some of the 2005 Alan's Cabernets with some of the very lovely Springflat and Reserve Shiraz from David a few months back. I tried one bottle not long after delivery and found the menthol/eucalypt just too intense. My wife, who claims a much better nose than I, referred to it as cough mixture. I gave it another try on Saturday and it had the same intense menthol/eucalypt. I left it open for 24 hours and came back to it. The menthol dominated the nose but backed off in the mouth with some lovely cabernet fruit coming through - but not enough for us to stick with it. We just couldn't finish it off. Is this typical of the Alan's - if so it is probably not our cup of tea. Might stick with the shiraz. Or, should we try another vintage? We are usually pretty big cabernet drinkers, so certainly don't have an issue with the variety.

Regards,

Allan