Aussie Wines!

Brand’s has been undergoing an image change over the past few years. From “Brand’s of Coonawarra” to “Brand’s” and now to “Brand’s Laira”. But I think they’ve finished with all that mucking around now, so hopefully you can just order a Brand’s Cabernet and get what you’re after!

The Patron refers to Eric Brand, one of the first to put Coonawarra on the map. Originally planted with Shiraz, Coonawarra produced cooler climate wines compared to the more northerly Barossa. Coonawarra is also known for the famous red soils, which you’ll see on some wine labels as Terra Rossa, eg the Parker wines.

Since the 60’s, Coonawarra has changed from a Shiraz region to a Cabernet region. These days it is seen as the home of Cabernet in Australia, although people from Margaret River might get annoyed if they hear you say that.

This particular wine is a special release, it’s not part of the Brand’s regular arsenal and only pops up in decent years. You can see they chose this year well from the amount of gold on the top of the bottle. There are 6 trophies and 7 gold medals marked there and has picked up more since. Very limited, pretty hard to get, about $85 but probably more in many shops due to how limited it is.

At 5 years old, this is still in its youth and a bright purple edge gives this away. If there’s such a thing as fluoro purple, this is it. The nose is still very restrained (I am tasting this without decanting it), with the usual suspects present, mulberry, blackcurrant and some evidence of oak. The oak is really well integrated, considering that new French oak was used. The tannins are also particularly well integrated, with no drying astringency going on. As they should be, for this price.

The wine has received favourable reviews compared to Bordeaux wines, particular for the price. It’s elegant, restrained and yet fresh and lively. It’s youthful and looking good now, but it will be interesting to see this develop so I have put away 6 bottles to open over the next decade. 94 points

I was fortunate enough to try an early sample of the O’Leary Walker 2009 Rieslings, both the Watervale and Polish Hill, last Saturday. We have strong connections with the guys and these wines are great value.

Mind you, most Rieslings are great value, as they’re not a huge seller. In Australia, many if not most Rieslings are fermented through to dryness, but everyone still thinks that a Riesling will be sweet. That may have been true 30 years ago in Oz, but not so much these days. Plus, Riesling generally doesn’t go into oak barrels (which are expensive). Riesling is seen as one of the purest expressions of wine, because you literally pop it into the fermenters and let the yeast do their job, rather than making all sorts of decisions about what treatment it should get. Because of these two factors, you can pick up great quality Riesling at bargain prices. It’s rare for a Riesling in Australia to get over $35 or so, whereas the best Chardonnays can hit $100 or more.

I haven’t been able to track down many vintage reports for the 2009 Clare Valley vintage yet, but I know that in general South Australia got hit with a big heat wave and the early ripening varietals were picked quite early. Fortunately they got some rain before Christmas, so that helped the ripening process and may have saved an otherwise difficult vintage.

So how are the wines looking? The Watervale smells so fresh that you’d almost swear it was still in the vat. It’s beautifully floral on the nose, the usual lime flavours, without being harsh at all. The acid is well balanced too. It really is a young wine, but I think it’s a good drop and will settle down in bottle over the next month. Great value for a white in the low $20s. 92 points.

On the other hand, the Polish Hill was much more restrained, almost closed on the nose. While the nose and palate were promising, I think bottle shock was a major issue here and will reserve judgement on this wine until I have a look at another bottle in a month or so. Sometimes when a wine has just been bottled, it can taste dull and lifeless… this is bottle shock. The wine will usually right itself, or come back to life, in a month or so. Watch this space for an update.

One of the advantages of writing wine reviews is that people send you their wines to try. I write articles for a local magazine in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney called The Beast and from these reviews, I receive a few e-mails per month. One of the guys who works for BackVintage Wines, Michael, contacted me about their wines.

Apparently their boss hates it when someone says this, but they’re basically cleanskin wines. Now when people think of cleanskins, they think of $3 bottles that are leftovers, but there are many cleanskins out there of varying quality. So how do you make sure you get the decent stuff? Get a Master of Wine (Nick Bulleid, MW) to select your wines for you. That way you know that you have a bloke with an accredited palate behind your label.

I was sent two wines to try, their 2008 Margaret River Chardonnay and 2008 Yarra Valley Coldstream Pinot Noir. The Chardy will set you back $12.99 per bottle and the Pinot is $14.99 per bottle. And yes I know the pic isn’t of either of the bottles, but go with it.

The Chardonnay, I am told, is declassified fruit from a producer that normally sells a $65 Chardy. This stuff apparently just barely missed the cut. This is the first of the two wines that I tried and I thought it was very good value, especially for $13. It’s got fantastic length to it, a really beautiful mouthfeel, without being overly oaky or buttery (which often turns people off Chardonnay). Don’t get me wrong, there’s oak there, but not a lot of it and it’s well integrated. There’s also a nice acid backbone running through this wine. Lovely citrus, ripe peach and melon flavours come through - it’s not too shabby at all. If you’re a Sauvignon Blanc drinker, this is not for you. But if you normally drink $20 - $30 Chardonnay and are looking for an every day quaffer during this global financial crisis, this is something you should check out. 89 points.

The Pinot also opened up very well. It has a really light colour, even for a Pinot. Then I stuck my nose in the glass and was pleasantly surprised too. It has a beautiful gamey nose, reminding me of some of the $50ish Pinots that I’ve tried over the years. The palate didn’t quite follow through though, it’s quite short in length and very light in flavour. Now this isn’t always a bad thing, but I’ll admit I was expecting more given the nose. For $15, it’s certainly worth looking at, especially during summer when you want a really light red, but don’t expect it to bowl you over. Just remember that Pinot is an expensive grape to produce since the berries are small and fickle, so if you’re a Pinot fan, it’s good value for money. 87 points.

So yes, they’re still cleanskins, but they’re some of the better cleanskins out there and are very good value for money. Check out www.backvintage.com.au for more details.

So I’m really starting to show my weakness for Shiraz here, aren’t I? I will add some Pinot and Cabernet posts soon, it just happens that I’ve been drinking a lot of Shiraz lately!

Pondalowie is based in Victoria in an area known as Bridgewater on Loddon. They’re a red wine specialist, doing some wonderful things with Shiraz and Tempranillo in particular. The label is interesting too, with some pretty loud colours on all of their wines and a design that looks like barbed wire. It’s actually a stylised representation of their dog… in Australia, vineyards and dogs go together. Some dogs even have their own calendars and there are a couple of books about it too!

So, this wine… well, it’s a perfect representation of what I think of when it comes to non-Heathcote Victorian Shiraz. More open than the dark, brooding Heathcote styles, a beautiful perfumed nose and it’s youth is betrayed by a beautiful purple tinge around the edge of the wine. Better top myself up, I’ve finished my first glass already.

Right, that’s better. So, on the nose, lovely spicy blackberry/mulberry flavours, hints of oak, you know from the nose that this is going to be something interesting, especially for $30. And it is. It’s got a lovely fullness to the palate without being overpowering. You can tell there are tannins there but you can’t feel them on your teeth like you can with so many young Australian Shirazes. It’s got a lovely flavour and length to it without being ridiculous. Perhaps the best way I can put it is that it strikes a lovely balance between the extremes of just about every scale you can judge a Shiraz on, while still being unmistakably Shiraz. It may not knock you off your chair by being really different (which seems to be what a lot of people expect these days), but it’s still a very impressive wine that will treat you well. I love it. Put it with some mellow music and a lovely tomato based pasta dish and just chill out. 92 points

While I know a fair bit about French wines, my knowledge of the Italians is a bit more limited. So when one of the wine reps came through the store with this thing, I was happy to try it and learn.

Gavi is an area in Piedmont, in Allessandria, close to Liguria. It has a history of producing wine that dates back over 1000 years and produces both red and whites.

The whites, like this, are made from the Cortese grape. It doesn’t have a hugely pungent nose, but has a lovely rich mouthfeel. You’re looking for things like apple, honey and grapefruit flavours.

This is more of a dinner wine than a lunch wine, so stands apart from styles like Pinot Grigio or Toscana. If you want to try something different, this wine comes in at around $35 and is better with food rather than drinking alone. A nice creamy seafood dish might even work well. 89 points

Alright, I’m going to come right out and say it. I’m not a huge Penfolds fan. In general, I think the wines are overpriced and often lack character. I’ve tried Grange, RWT, all the Bin wines and the Hyland, Koonunga and Rawson’s Retreat ranges, but just haven’t managed to see what all of the hype is about. I mean, there’s a lot of marketing, history and passion behind the label and I certainly don’t think the wines are crap, but given the choice of Penfolds and anything else that’s vaguely decent, I’ll take anything else that’s vaguely decent.

Having said that, I wound up with a bottle of the 2007 Bin 128 Coonawarra Shiraz to try. My review in a nutshell - it’s certainly drinkable (once it opens up a bit), but there’s better for the price.

Now, I’m drinking this in July 2009, so it’s certainly very young. That shows when you first open it up… nothing is quite integrated yet, but hardly anyone ages wine these days, so this is how many drinkers will taste it. It’s tight, it’s tough and you can feel the tannin as the wine swirls around your mouth.

But then I moved onto the second glass and it started to marry together a bit. The cool climate of Coonawarra shines through, the wine is elegant, subtle and becomes more delicate as it opens up. As with most cool climate Shirazes, the pepper and spice is quite pronounced rather than any fruit… not that it’s lacking fruit, just the spices are more obvious. The tannins are there, which will help this wine age like the winemakers want it to. Apart from the really cheap stuff, Penfolds reds age quite well. This is no exception, it’s got structure to move on.

But I still feel there’s something lacking. For around $35ish, which is where this wine is these days, there are much better wines around. So, it’s certainly not a bad wine, but I’ll still stick with anything else that’s vaguely decent. 88 points. But having said that, I’d like to look at this wine again in 5 years or so and see how it’s come together.

I’ve known this bloke down in the Barossa, Marco Cirillo, for a couple of years now and I’ll post about his amazing Grenache soon. Recently, he’s been helping out this other bloke called Alex Head to make his wines. Alex is a wine retailer, a wine distributor and now a winemaker. Plus he’s a genuinely nice guy.

In Feb 09, I went down to the Barossa to catch up with a few people I know, including Marco. We opened up a couple of bottles of the very limited Head Wines and I was impressed, so I put them into the shop.

You can read all about Alex’s wines at his website, headwines.com.au . And if you’re trying to find a picture of the wines using images.google.com and search for Head Blonde with the SafeSearch turned off, you get what you asked for.

Alex currently makes three wines. The Brunette is really limited, only 66 cases made. The 2007 is the most elegant of his three, it’s a beauty and will set you back around $40. 94 points

He also makes a Shiraz with a dash of Viognier called the Head Red. The 2008 is very intense, the colour is vibrant and will even stain the inside of your glass with a bright purple colour. For $25, it’s pretty damn full on but really approachable for a young wine. 91 points.

But it’s his Blonde that makes life interesting. The difference between the Blonde and the Brunette is the different areas of the Barossa that they come from. The Blonde comes from Stonewell, made famous by Peter Lehmann. Peter (he hates it when you call him Mr Lehmann, trust me) makes wines that are much bigger, ballsier and ageworthy from this vineyard, while Alex’s has a certain finesse to it. Again, with a splash of Viognier in there, it’s approachable when young. But this baby can age for awhile if you want it to. It’s surprising really, because generally you want a decent tannin structure to age a red and you almost can’t tell there are any tannins here, they’re so well integrated into the wine. You can really tell there’s Viognier in there, with the lovely, floral, youthful nose going on. As the wine opens up, you get ripe red berry flavours shining through. It’s a belter, but there are only 198 cases of the 2007 so it’ll be tough to find some. At $32ish, just get into it and thank me later. 93 points.

Tonight I’m drinking The Blonde with a decent sirloin steak and a fresh tomato & rocket salad drizzled with olive oil and lemon juice and it’s going well, both are so fresh and lively. And the song for it? Let’s go with Custard, Girls Like That.

So for those of you who don’t know, Clonakilla is the winery that put Canberra on the map as a wine region in Australia. Tim Kirk, the bloke behind the label, is famous for his Shiraz Viognier, which generally goes for around $90 and is seen as one of Australia’s best.

2007 was a crappy year for the Canberra region, with nasty frosts (which isn’t great for grapes). He lost a lot of his crop and therefore there was very little of his precious Shiraz Viognier available for his loyal, sometimes manic, customers. He just didn’t think that most of the fruit was good enough and didn’t want to sully the good name he’d spent years cultivating. Some was released, but very little.

To fill the gap, here’s a brand new label, born out of a desire to give his customers what they want in a very difficult year. Now, generally a splash of Viognier is added to Shiraz that is youthful, tight and vibrant to take the edge off it, and that’s exactly what this is. It’s youthful like you wouldn’t believe, the vibrant purple colour will give that away. It smells as refreshing as a Shiraz can be… it almost smells like freshly fermented juice being pumped into barrels, rather than a Shiraz that is from two years ago, but there isn’t a hint of unripeness (yay for new words!) and it certainly is ready to drink, but of course you can give it a few years if you like. At around $45, it’s a great wine from a cool climate (and cool vintage) that is something different to the big Barossa ballbusters out there.

A lot of people are into food and wine matching (in this case, a nice BBQ would be great), but I’m getting into food and music matching, for something different. So, listen to this with something vibrant and funky… my pick, Butterfly Dub (Protassov and Kinksi remix) by Protassov.

I imagine that, even after a crappy vintage, Tim tasted this and was satisfied that he got through it just fine. 94 points

Hey all,

Just a bit of info about me and what I do. My name is Alex, I work in the Australian wine industry and am doing a PhD in taste and smell perception, also involving wine.

I intend to write about the wines that I taste on here, telling you what I think and all that stuff… but without the wank that often comes with wine territory. I tend to prefer boutique wineries rather than the big guys, but it all depends on the actual wine.

My aim is to be entertaining and educational, so I hope you like my tasting notes! You can also find some of my previous writings online at www.rosebayliquor.com.au

Hope you enjoy reading! Watch this space for updates.

Alex