Winetastic

More subtle than its Eden Valley cousin, the 2005 Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling presents the same quality and excellent value for money. This wine was tasted blind along with the Eden Valley and Leonay Rieslings, both from 2005.

Subtle nose with hints of pear and floral notes, the palate was also more subtle than the eden valley or leonay and consisted of sour apple and limes backed by controlled acidity. The officail tasting notes can be found here.

Score: 8/10
Would I buy this wine again?
If the Eden Valley Riesling was unavailable, in a heartbeat. Excellent value for money at around $14 a bottle.

Christmas gifts! Oh the joys of reasonably priced wine that I wouldn’t normally buy! Of course it’s always great to find some gems in amongst the usual suspects, unfortunately the Jacob’s Creek Shiraz 2002 falls into the ‘usual suspects’ category for me, despite being quite reasonable for the $10 price bracket.

A medium bodied Shiraz that won’t overpower your food is how I look at this wine. This wine has got a little bit of everything; nice ‘n spicy cherry and berry fruit flavours turn out to even be a wee bit sweet and smokey, with non-offensive chalky tannins and reasonable length to the finish. I can imagine that this one is a bit of a crowd pleaser, a real bloke’s BBQ wine - and I must admit it did grow on me the more I drank and the more I let it breathe… but I never really enjoyed it.

Of course it does have that ‘mass produced’ taste that I have trouble describing to people; I think what I mean by that is that it just lacks the character of other wines, say the Knappstein 2002 Shiraz. It all seems a little shallow for me.

Would I buy this wine again? No. In the end this wine delivers, and I don’t doubt theres a bit of value in here - but not on my palette theres not! I picture that this could make for a nice wine with food, a BBQ or spicy food in particular - a steak marinade was a nice suggestion from the panel yesterday! In the end, explore elsewhere.

Looking for a light and refreshing white that isnt all acid and wont break the bank? You may well want to consider the 2001 Thistle Hill Semillon.

The 2001 is the current release from Thistle Hill, since they have a policy of aging their wines longer in oak and bottle before releasing them to the marketplace. Lemon and tropical fruit on the nose, the palate shows lemon and acidic characters that quickly fade into light buttery oak flavours. This wine is very light in weight, contrasting a lot with the hunter valley semillons reviewed here recently, which felt a lot fuller or rounder in the mouth.

Score: 6/10
Would I buy this wine again?
Probably not, other wines of a similar style and price appeal more to my palate, such as the Mount Pleasant Elizabeth. However if organic wines are your thing, definitely give this one a shot.

“That’s some damn fine kerosene”

What on earth? This is honestly the most unusual wine I’ve ever tasted. I think my initial reaction sums it up well: I began to hold up the glass of Riesling to my nose, ready to take in the aromas of yet another wine… but it didn’t make it to my nose, I immediately placed the glass back down, looking around the room concerned that someone had spilt some chemicals nearby… until I realised: it was the wine. What!?

My informant tells me that often aged Riesling will produce these kerosene, petrolium characteristics… well they certainly are noticeable… distracting would be a better term, an even better term would be “overpowering”. Is this the aged Riesling “curse of the kero” or do most aged Rieslings exhibit this type of flavour?

Indeed, I believe this is the kind of unappealing flavours I have tried in the past with some younger Rieslings (and thus milder flavour) that I did not like then and I certainly do not like now with this 2001 Riesling. But hey, this is definitely a worthy experiment - so lets experiment.

At first I served it up quite chilled, straight from the bottle into my mouth. I gave it a day to sit and let it warm up a bit before serving: the wine was completely different. The kerosene flavours had softened, the buttery / olive oil and lime flavours came out and I was left with what equated to a reasonable aged wine with plenty of depth, and a nice finish to boot. Trying the same trick a few days later the depth seemed to evaporate a bit, I guess thats what you get leaving it open for too long though…

I initially brought this baby along to the Wine-tastic Riesling evening where the rest of the Riesling was from 2005. I’m going to have to go with the younger ones in general, then again maybe its just our good friend Leo Buring’s magic touch, but this certainly was an interesting journey - a grand wine adventure to be sure!

Would I buy this wine again? No, but I may check out younger vintages based on some favourable comments. I guess you should never say never though! In the end it was quite good, but probably not what I’m after in a white wine - at the end of the day it still tasted a bit too much like motor oil. Aged Semillon is still where its at for me. Check out the Mitchelton tasting notes on their site.

A few months back at a Dan Murphy’s tasting, one of the regulars began to rave about the massive difference that fine glassware can make to your appreciation of a wine. He was specifically speaking of Riedel glasses, supposedly the finest in the world when it comes to function. This picked up my attention, after some further research i’m convinced, and I feel it’s time to invest in some wine glasses that you don’t just find in Big W!

I have been attempting to do a little research online as to where to begin, the general consensus around the traps is that Riedel make the best glassware bar none, they have several ranges at various price points, most of them prohibitively expensive. The Ouverture range seems to be in budget, 4 glasses retailing for around the AU$70-80 mark.

Basically I am asking for some advice, especially from our friendly group of Australian based wine bloggers! What brand of glassware have or would you purchase for everyday use? A glass you would not necessarily be scared of breaking at any moment, but one which allows the wine to reach its potential. Bonus points for Sydney siders: where would you go to find the most competitive price?

So far this is my pick of the Verdelho on the market today - well, the portion of the market I have tried at least! This Verdelho isn’t a wafer thin, watered-down, tropical-flavoured wine “drink” - this is, believe it or not, a great little drop of wine!

Sure, some of those aspects are there; the tropical fruit flavours and the strong, full-bodied “fresh” sensation from when you serve it perfectly chilled. What sets this Verdelho out from the pack, though, is that has a lovely spice/acidity to it, much similar to my favourite Semillon blends. And as with some of my favourite Semillons, this Vedelho and Thai food works wonders, a delicious contrast to the potent Thai flavours that I enjoy.

Some people have written off Verdelho completely as a poor, tasteless man’s white wine - based on the Tamburlaine Verdelho though, I don’t see how. Verdelho is definitely here to stay, and for some value-infused everyday-drinking I’m glad it is! Sure, a lot of the Verdelho I’ve tried since has been sub-par, but it’ll all be worth it if I can find more like this one.

Also did you know the first Australian Verdelho was (supposedly) in Camden? I should investigate this history of wine more closely I think, perhaps in my mouth, especially since it is right around the corner from where I now work! As another side note, glad to see a website that still uses blinking text!

Would I buy this wine again? I’m sure the 2003 vintage is long gone, but I’ll definitely be picking up future vintages from our good organic friends over at Tamburlaine! Also, good to see Tamburlaine wine at Woolworth’s Liquor of late! I should poke my head in for a Vedelho over summer…

Continuing the exploration of aged semillon, I purchased a bottle of the 2000 Mount Pleasant Elizabeth, which is currently available as a “cellar release”.

Golden calcite with green hues, the nose was surprisingly vibrant with citrus coming to the fore. The first sip bursts onto the tongue with lemon citrus flavours and some balanced acidity, before fading to a lingering buttery finish. Detailed tasting notes are located at the McWilliam’s Website.

Thoroughly enjoyable, this wine has a depth or complexity which I have only previously found in bottles of red. All this despite never touching any oak, eat your heart out chardonnay.

Score: 9/10
Would I buy this wine again?
Currently selling for only $14 at Uncle Dan Murphy’s, this wine is outstanding value for money. With another 5 years cellaring potential, I shall be picking up some more.

South Australian 2002 Shiraz continues to impress.

Whereas the Knappstein 2002 Shiraz was probably more of a drink-now wine, this one tugs on my shirt and asks kindly to be cellared for a few years to reach that same softened, mellowness of flavours. Hold on - did you just read what I just wrote as something like “don’t bother drinking now?” hahaha… hell no! Drink it now, its bloody delicious. Bigger and less subtle than the Knappstein, but oh - there is no doubt, I am picking up some more of these and I’d suggest that you at give it a whirl if you enjoy a cool climate Australian Shiraz with plenty of delicious raspberry and black cherry fruit flavours.

Fantastic length, great balance of flavours and spice, silky tannins, medium to full bodied - what more can I ask for? Not much thats for sure. Check out some of the Brand’s of Coonawarra tasting notes and such. Anyway, you know I’m impressed - theres value to be had with this one in my book.

Would I buy this wine again? I’m going to pay a visit to Uncle Dan this weekend to grab three of these. One to spoil myself with, two to put away.

I’m a bit of a hippy at heart so organic wines really appeal to me. They’re free of pesticides, herbicides, chemical fertilizers and other synthetic chemicals, and essential natural preservatives like sulfur dioxide tend to be kept to a minimum. Generally at organic wineries modern and traditional techniques are combined, producing high qulaity wines with the fewest detrimental effects to the environment. Grapes are often picked by hand and the wine made gently, with minimal handling and filtration, all good stuff in my opinion. My only experience of organic wines so far was at the Thistle Hill Vineyard in Mudgee, where i was literally blown away by the qulaity, and flavours of the wine, lets just say we came away with a few bottles. Ever since i’ve been keen to get into more organic wine and jumped at the chance to try this Rose offering from Organic Vignerons.

Maybe i’d built it up a bit too much, but it didn’t live up to my expectations i’m afraid to say. A soft, salmon pink in the glass this wine presents mixed berries, particularly strawberry on the nose. The initial impact on the palate is fruity, then it turns into something far too sweet for my liking, then there is a hint of some tanins in the aftertaste. I tend to prefer a Rose that is crisp, dry, slightly fruity and refreshing, with a tang of acidity. This wine is drinkable, but it’s more of a quaffer for me, not one i’m going to sit back and savour.

Would i buy this wine again? At around $14 a bottle it’s not a bad price, i just think there are better wines out there for the money, so i don’t see myself buying it in the near future. I’m certainly not going to let this put me off finding good value, yet high quality organic wines.

I found this wine somewhat difficult to review, primarly due to my lack of experience tasting aged whites. I understand that a semillon undergoes a process of morphing between the fresh young white with prominent citrus and acidity, into a more complex wine with toasty characters. The 2001 Stevens Semillon is currently somewhere between these two states and is still retaining some of the youthful fruit and acidity.

I encourage you not to make the same mistake that I did and over chill this wine, I found it most enjoyable once my half full glass had returned to a few degrees below room temperature, around 16-17 degrees. In this state the wine brought a lot more to the party, having lovely lemon fruit flavours mixed in with toasty characters and a hint of honey. Detailed tasting notes and information can be found at the Tyrrell’s website.

The 2001 Reserve Stevens Semillon is the current release from Tyrrell’s as they decided to ensure the wine had some bottle age before placing it on the market, a respectable move indeed. The price at most retailers is around $20-25 a bottle.

Score: 8/10
Would I buy this wine again?
Most of my semillon enjoyment comes from young ones paired with thai food, the exploration of older bottles shall continue, and I will definitely re-visit the Tyrrell’s in the future.