Category Archives: Wine

TheWineBlog.net – General articles about wine.

On the Road – continued

by Martin Field

Chateaux in St Emilion and Bordeaux
The neighbouring regions of St Emilion and Bordeaux are a wine lover’s paradise. Vineyards and wineries are everywhere and there are innumerable lovely reds and whites to sip, to drink, to wallow in. There are guided tours available from the St Emilion and Bordeaux tourist bureaux or, armed with a map, the adventurous wine tourist can simply drive around and check out likely looking chateaux. But check out the tourist brochures first – many places are open to the public ‘by appointment only.’

Yes, you quickly discover that French winemakers are very much into the semi-mystical (to Australians anyway) concept of terroir – the concept of wine quality based on soil types, micro- meso- and macro-climates and all that. But despite reported French antagonism to what they dismiss as Australia’s industrial wines we noticed that many wineries have now entered the equivalent of the oenological industrial revolution and purchased kazillions of euros worth of stainless steel fermenters and associated modern winemaking equipment. Just like the Australians.

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Recommended Australian wines – by Martin Field

Jansz 2001 – up to $37
Pipers Brook. Tasmania. Chardonnay and pinot noir. Pale straw, fine to medium bead. Delicate floral nose with hints of brioche and lime. I’ve always enjoyed the Jansz style and this maintains the line: elegant, light and dry with an edge of cool climate zing to inspire the tastebuds.

Palandri Riesling 2004 – around $18
Frankland River, Western Australia. Light gold, hint of green. Attractive nose of lime sherbet. More of the zippy lime character along with a smidgin of Granny Smith apple comes through in the palate of this well-weighted white.

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On the road

by Martin Field

I’ve been on holidays. London, St Emilion, Paris and San Francisco to be exact. Phew! It’s good to be back in Melbourne. Here follow a few random thoughts on the trip.

Mummified suitcases
Travel isn’t the fun it once was – or maybe I’m getting old. I travelled a lot in the late ‘60s and in 1971 the hippie overland trail from London to Calcutta was a highlight. Back then you could travel (rough) without too many concerns about personal security. Thirty to forty years on it’s strange to note that in a supposedly more civilised world international travel can be a bit of a worry.

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Tastings from Australia

by Martin Field

Four Emus Chardonnay 2005 – $8 and under
South Australia. Attractive fruity nose full of peaches and pears. Off-dry palate with flavours of tropical fruits makes for a very pleasing summery style.

Barwite Riesling 2004 – around $14
Mansfield, Victoria. Delicate nose of lime and lemon flowers. Light dryish style in the mouth with lovely citrus character. Fine aperitif or entrée accompaniment. Will drink well for five years and more.

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What the Dickens!

‘Unsophisticated ALES & STOUTS. GOOD BEDS’ so used to read a sign on the wall of the Leather Bottle pub, Cobham, Kent, before the pub was restored. The Leather Bottle was frequented by Charles Dickens and is mentioned in his Pickwick Papers. Clearly, unsophisticated in this sense means pure and unadulterated. Pity the same can’t be said of many present day ales and stouts. Source, photograph in The Legacy of England, third edition, B.T. Batsford, London,1946-47.

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Aged and Ageing wine

Among the fine reds lined up on our regular Tuesday table was a bottle of 1952 vintage Mt Ophir Burgundy. Mt Ophir was a renowned Rutherglen winery near Chiltern that shut down in 1957. In its day, according to David Dunstan’s Better than Pommard – A History of Wine in Victoria, Mt Ophir produced over half a million litres a year.

The 53 year old wine (most likely shiraz) was in a heavy champagne bottle of an unusual bluish green hue and we wondered whether the contents had stayed the distance as the ancient cork looked very dodgy and proved difficult to extract. But not to worry, the wine was excellent. In colour it was a deep ruddy brown. The nose showed leathery aged fruit but was not at all sherrified. Also there was a distinct whiff of vanilla, although it is unlikely that the wine was matured in new wood. The palate was soft, rich and dry with a long and penetrating finish and a flavour that reminded me of coffee liqueur. It must have been a monster in its youth.

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Champagne restaurant syndrome?

In a comprehensive piece, If MSG is so bad for you why doesn’t everyone in Asia have a headache? a Guardian Observer correspondent discusses the whys and wherefores of the food additive MSG (monosodium glutamate) – pretty much demythologising the so-called Chinese Restaurant Syndrome (CRS).

What caught my attention was the mention that MSG is a major constituent of autolyzed yeast extracts – like Marmite and similar products. Now students of wine will know well that a significant flavour (umami) component of Champagne is autolyzed yeast. This raises the obvious question: if CRS does exist does the consumption of Champagne create problems for those who feel they are susceptible to that alleged condition? Should one risk accompanying Chinese food with Champagne?

Recommended wines from Australia and New Zealand

Jacob’s Creek Shiraz Rosé 2005 – under $10
Paleish pink. Sweetish raspberry nose. Light dryish and refreshing, shows delicate raspberry fruit and easy on the palate acidity. Delightful Spring luncheon style.

Yellowglen Perle 2001 – around $23
Pinot noir, Chardonnay and pinot meunier. Three years on yeast lees. Vigorous small bead. Bouquet is lifted, with apple blossoms and biscuity yeast. Medium dry on the palate, mid-weighted with dried apples and apricots and citrus zest to the finish.

Cloudy Bay Gewürztraminer 2003 – about $30+
New Zealand. Pale straw. Heady aromatics of nuts, dried apricots, figs and faint toasty oak make for a complex nose. The palate is rich and long with Turkish delight and marmalade notes leading to a quite firm finish. A beautifully constructed, perfumed white.

Jim Barry Clare Valley The Florita Riesling 2004 – about $40
Green to light gold. Essence of lime and lemon on the nose. Dry steely style with pervasive citrus throughout. This classic Clare dry white has a very low pH of 2.99 but the high acid supports rather than dominates the fruit. Finishes long and lean. Drink at any point in the meal. Cellar if you wish to 2020.

William Downie Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2004 – $40+
Unfiltered unfined. Mid-ruby hues. Intense pinot characters of strawberries and dark cherries on the nose. Powerful and elegant, very dry, showing subtle and spicy French oak. Pronounced acid tang leads to a food-demanding firm finish. Will drink well to 2009.

Yalumba The Signature ‘Geoff Linton’ Cabernet / Shiraz 2001 – $40ish
Dense purple. Cedar and dark berries on the nose. Thick solid and chewy on the palate with blackcurrants and dark chocolate (think Lindt 85%). A great wine with a long lineage – I fondly remember some of these from years ago – particularly the ‘Rudi Kronberger’ of 1967 and the ‘Christobel’ of 1974.

Hewitson Ned & Henry’s Barossa Valley Shiraz 2004 – mid $20sBlended with 10% Mourvedre. Darkish red. Plummy, aniseed nose. Warm and spicy in the mouth with berries, undergrowth and a sub-structure of subtle wood.

d’Arenberg McLaren Vale d’Arry’s Original Shiraz Grenache 2003 – $20 and below
Youthful crimson. Nose of dusty oak and preserved cherries. Medium drying tannins support flavours that remind one of Black Forest cake – i.e. berry conserve and mocha. Solid finish of acidity and tannins will suit main course fare.

Note: Prices in Australian dollars.

Whither California Cabernets?

Recently, I received the latest issue of “Connoisseur’s Guide to California Wines” (CGCW), one of the older publications that reviews (mostly) California wines. In their Aug. 2005 issue, they reviewed 163 recently released California Cabernets, almost all of which came from the highly touted 2001-2 vintages. Of these 163, 1 (the 2002 Diamond Creek Gravelly Meadow) received their highest accolade of ***, whereas 16 received a rating of ** and 56 received a grade of *. If we take these three rankings as meaning bottles meriting serious attention, then 73/163 (44%) made the grade with less than 1% achieving the highest status and ~10% reaching **. Granted, many of the heavy hitters (Ridge, Phelps, Montelena e.g.) were missing from this issue, but as a survey of what’s on the market I believe that it gives us an accurate picture.

Much has been written in recent years about the tremendous strides made in winemaking in CA, so I decided to see it this was reflected in increasingly positive reviews in CGCW by digging out an older issue of CGCW (Vol. 6 from 1981) that looked at Cabs from the ’76-’77 vintages (drought years that produced some very good wines, but which weren’t heralded as great years). What I found was that, of 212 wines reviewed, 1 (<1%) got ***, 20 (10%) got ** and 46 (21%) received *. So, overall, 31% of the wines reviewed merited serious attention. What to make of all this number crunching? First of all, it appears that little if any change has been made at the top. It is true that the standards of the publication may have changed in the interim, but the fact remains that as few wines today receive their top marks as did 25 years ago. However, there is a significant increase in * wines, reflecting what I see as an overall increase in the baseline quality of winemaking and vineyard practices. This is also reflected by the absence of any "inverted glass" ratings (undrinkable wine) in the Aug. 2005 issue, as compared to 14 inverted glasses in the '81 issue. However, this must be balanced by another significant change: whereas there were 11 Cabs labeled "Best Buy" in '81, only 2 received that accolade in the latest issue. In many regards, this matches my own, wholly subjective impressions. CalCabs today are uniformly drinkable, well made wines that sell for usually absurdly high prices, with only a very few providing actual excitement. It is interesting to contrast the very successful 2001 vintage of Cabs with the 2000 vintage in Bordeaux. In both cases, the top wines sell for obscenely high prices, but it is noteworthy that the 2000 Bordeaux vintage produced many excellent wines from the satellite appellations that sold in the US for $15-20 a bottle; surveying this current crop of CalCabs, only one of the rated wines sold for less than $20. I contast this situation with what I remember from the late '70s, when wineries like Conn Creek, Robert Keenan, Caymus and Franciscan (to name a few) made exciting, idiosyncratic, hit-or-miss wines that sold for reasonable sums of money and would not infrequently hit home runs. I am sure that there remain wineries in CA that still do this, but I fear that the vast majority have swapped inconsistency for mediocrity while at the same time pricing their wines out of all proportion to what's reasonable.