The Auswine Forum

First tasting of the year at DeVines downtown here in Edmonton. 60 participants get a chance to taste some of the wines featured in the new top 100. Stand up style with some great food, including braised pork loin, meatballs, pasta shrimp salad and Piave Vecchia cheese.

1) `05 Planeta Chardonnay Sicily.

Was chosen #50 and served as reception. Golden color, honey, butterscotch spot on. Not really my style, $43 Cdn

2) `05 Ridge Santa Cruz Mountains Chardonnay, Sonoma.

#2 in the WS list and one of the wines of the night here. This was termendous even for non-chard drinkers! Spice, toasty oak with flavors of figs and pear. Lots going on here, what a great wine! Cost n/a.

3) `05 Vina Montes Alpha Apalta Vineyard Syrah, Colchaqua, Chile.

#30, this was singing forumites. Ripe, smooth texture, cherry, blackberry. Hints of vanilla mixed in here. Some cab sauv and viognier blended in. Lovely, great with the pork loin on sourdough. $27, buy, buy!!

4) `04 Pontet-Canet, Pauillac.

Not too many sure about this one, new to top-class Bordeaux? #34 on the annual list. Way too young of course but I noted tobacco, currant on the nose. Mint, cedar, raspberry for sure. Has all the potential but keep for how long??

5) `04 Antinori Tignanello, Tuscany.

#4, right up there. What a great wine, can see what all the fuss is abouit. WOTN for many! Great fruit concentration, long memorable finish. Some people had the `97 I believe, lots of chatter about this one around the room. Think around $85?

6) `05 Descendientes de Jose Palacious Petalos, Bierzo Sp.

Many TNs on forum here. #95 on the list, 3rd time I have tasted. Spice, plum nose with licorice, blackberry taste. Love this fun wine at $31, wonder if Otto has seen this? Flew out of the store and can see why. We all have to seek this one out, maybe not that typical of area but try it. One lady said "I only drink white wine, this makes me a believer".

7) `05 Schild Barossa Shiraz, Australia.

Very popular in the room. #16, way up there and $32. Wow wine from the Barossa, have to try the riesling after this. Great balance, cherry, pepper, soft tannins. Lovely complexity, drinks well now. Why keep?!!

Mystery surprise wine!

Think this is a shiraz from Aust? Great balance, round smooth, guess around 15% alc. Deep color here, massive fruit flavors, sweet, oak in background. Few thought Chile, some California? All wrong, it turned out to be.....................> #8, Carnival of Love Shiraz Mollydooker.

Here comes the reaction I thought as wine unfolded! "The wine costs $110? No way". "The Schild is much better value". "Can see what all the fuss is about, how many bottles can I have?". So it went on, what a night eh.

Hi Bob

Thanks for the notes.

Its interesting how people respond to the Mollydooker wines in a blinded tasting. The reviewer’s and even the winemakers descriptions of these wines puts them in an almost unique category that should make them easy to identify. But that is often not the case and even those with more than novice wine knowledge can be found to wax lyrical about them - until the bottle and/or price is revealed. At $75USD the 2006 CoL is certainly not a cheap wine and the Boxer at around $20 appears much better value. Is the difference really worth it? We stuck socks over a bottle of each this week and served them to a few friends at home – mix of novice and experienced wine drinkers. Three out of four favored the CoL and the fourth went for the Boxer because its not as obviously sweet as the CoL and he reckoned he could drink more than a glass of the Boxer; both have 16% alcohol, at least on the label, although Sparky has said that its more like 17+. When I revealed the price difference no one was all that surprised, but then no one asked where they could get the CoL either.

Mike

Interesting, WS must have been trying to make up for not including the 2004 in the previous top 100 when it was rated so highly, I think 96 pts (corrections welcome).

I tried to get some 2004 without any luck so at that time tried the 2005 and bought a 6 pack which are in the cellar. Possibly a good time to try a bottle.

Bob, are you back in circulation?

Top 100 wines of the Wine Spectator? I am jealous. Here I am in Bangladesh, staying in a household that doesn't drink! The best wine I can get my hands on are a simple Medoc (Chateau Lignan) and the Torres Gran Coronas! Otherwise its Sunrise Cabernet, Valpollicella by Montresor, Bellefontaine Cabernet and Merlot VdP D’Oc, as well as Hardys and Jacob Creek!

No computer where I am staying so I don't do any internet browsing, but right now I am up in the north of the country in a house with a computer and with time on my hands I got around to wondering what was going on in the Auswine Forum and, lo and behold, I find your posts. Makes me homesick.

Planeta’s wines are good but a bit over priced. Actually, many of the top Sicilian wines are priced a bit too high. Also, Planeta’s wines are “international” in style and my preference is for the wines of Donnafugata and Firriato among others.

I see that Montes Alpha is calling their vineyard wine “Syrah.” Apropos of another posting about Australian wines being “uncool” it looks like producers around the world may be distancing themselves from the New World style of shiraz and identifying their wine with the Old World. I’ve seen the "Syrah" spelling used in the better wines from South Africa, Lebanon and Sicily.

Bob, if all goes well here I might be back in Edmonton this summer. I still have a few bottles of old Riojas (which I know you like) as well as the ’61 or ’62 Nippozano Reserva that we discussed all those years ago when we first met. Is it a date?

Cheers…………………………Mahmoud.

61 and 62 Nipozzano? And I thought I was good having 1995, 1997, and 2000 in my cellar!!

Bob,

Agree on the 04 Tig - a super wine. Right up alongside the 97 IMO. I've cellared some both here and in Oz and think it will be awesome in 2017.

Cheers

Mike