Author: Alex Prichard

Evans and Tate Metricup Road Cabernet Merlot 2012

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As the new year ticked over I promised myself that this year I would pay more attention to my wine blog. As I write, we’re on the cusp of 1 June – not technically at the half year mark, but so close that the lack of posts appals me.

While there’s no excuse, the irony is that this year, while blogging has been relatively neglected, I feel like I’ve done a lot of writing. Not much of it has been about food and wine, and none in print (the Rioja article in the current James Halliday’s Wine Companion Magazine was written last year – but do go out and buy, read, enjoy). So while writing is not difficult, or even necessarily time consuming, finding some sacrosanct moments when I can think (so not after a full day writing microcontroller code, I can tell you!) has been tricky.

One of my wine drinking aims is to find those wines which punch above their weight. A bottle which costs $50+ and has been cellared carefully for the optimum amount of time blah blah blah should bloody well taste good. But the fun in wine drinking is finding those bottles that are sub $20 that you’d be more than happy to have three of (not in one hit – responsible drinking please!) to every $50 bottle. Yes, you do have to kiss a few frogs but I’d rather burn $20 on a frog than $50.

If you’re interested in wine, you end up reading lots of lists and, in my case, promptly forgetting them, meaning that visits to wine shops are pretty haphazard, but not truly random, affairs. Because I tend towards the esoteric, I’ve created my own list of “wines to try” that (hopefully) will mean I try wines that are more commercially approachable, as well the offbeat. Don’t worry – only this evening I picked up a Kangaroo Island Saperavi, so there will be quirky too.

Anyway, the other night, Andy was heading home from work via Dan’s and I was able to make immediate use of my newly created list and put in my order for the Evans & Tate Metricup Road Cabernet Merlot 2012 (my first pick was the Shiraz which was out of stock). Dan’s will sell it to you for $18 a bottle ($17 if you’re buying six or more).

Evans & Tate, now part of the McWilliams group, is based in Western Australia’s Margaret River. Margaret River has a climate similar to Bordeaux, and both are home to some of the world’s great Cabernet Sauvignon based wines. Cab Sav is often blended with Merlot: Merlot can soften Cab Sav’s tannins, balance the palate (the palate of CS is often described as a doughnut, with Merlot being the filling of the hole) and make the wine much more approachable at a younger age.

At $18 a bottle, I’d hope you wouldn’t be planning on cellaring a bottle of the Evans & Tate Metricup Road. Which is fine, because straight of the shelf and into the glass it is a wine that over delivers.

It is dense purple in the glass (yep, it’s young!) and on the second day (when I wrote the tasting note) the really over cassis notes of the first day had dropped away slightly. There was still cassis (blackcurrant) with black plum, a hint of licorice, some smoke and undergrowth.

The palate matches this: a lot of fresh black fruit – including blackcurrant, with good acidity and reasonably firm tannins. While you notice the tannins they’re not grippy or mouth puckering. There’s also a hint of licorice and chocolate.

The length of the wine is not bad at all and what does impress is the fact that the 14.5% alcohol doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb.

This is a textbook wine. You probably wouldn’t get excited if you spent over $30 but at the sub $20 mark it over delivers. It’s well balanced and typical Cabernet Merlot but lacks the complexity you might expect of a pricier wine. But it’s not a pricier wine – it’s one I found approachable, pleasantly surprising and definitely delivering on bang for buck.

Drink with a protein rich mid-week dinner. A steak, lamb chop or even a pizza won’t be amiss.

$18 from Dan Murphy’s, Pasadena.
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14.5% abv.

 

Tempus Two 2011 Pinot Gris

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Pinot Gris is one of those grapes that tends to excite some discussion regarding style. In Italy you find some generally lightweight and inoffensive wines, labelled (in Italian, funnily enough) as Pinot Grigio. And in France (in the Alsace, one of my favourite regions and sadly one I’m yet to visit) it’s labelled as Pinot Gris and tends to be made in a slightly weightier, more complex style.

This latter is definitely my preference and there does seem to be some consistency with Australian producers using the French or Italian grape name in order to mark out the style of the wine in the bottle. Of course, this is tending towards a convention, rather than mandate, so it’s still very much a case of caveat emptor.

I picked up this Tempus Two 2011 Pinot Gris from the local bottle shop where it was marked down to $17 a bottle. Usual pricing is around $10 more and according to the internet, a retail price of around the $25-27 mark seems about right.

Tempus Two wines have the funky little pewter ‘labels’ that make them stand out on the shelf so this wine should be easy to spot.

In the glass, the wine was pale straw with just a hint of green to it. The nose was a little tight, not giving up too much, but there was a slightly spicy characteristic along with crisp pear and apple and a touch of lemon. Things looked promising.

In the mouth, the same pear and apple came through and the acidity was pretty good. Unfortunately, the wine came across as a touch unbalanced with the alcohol really dominating the finish along with some unripe pear.

The wine had good mouth feel and weight to it: it had the extra oomph that I’d expect from a Pinot Gris but overall I felt the palate just didn’t live up to the nose.

I won’t be rushing back to buy up the shop’s remaining discounted stock: the back label is quite explicit that this is a wine for drinking young and a tiny part of me also wonders if this bottle had been subjected to some slightly less than ideal storage at some point … Having said that, I will be keeping an eye out for the 2012 (current release) and giving that a go. There was enough of interest in this bottle to merit a look.

$17 from Cellarbrations, Flagstaff Hill.
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12.5% abv.

Serafino 2007 Nebbiolo

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We have some friends who married in early June and somehow we’ve managed to spend a good many of their anniversaries with them. Even though we all met in England, they married in the US and have since lived in the UK, Bermuda and now Sydney. One such anniversary was 2010 when they spent a few days in Adelaide. Our Entertainment Book paid for itself in one fell swoop that year!

One day that weekend we headed down to McLaren Vale, visited a few wineries, bought a few wines and found it next to impossible to buy lunch at 3pm. One wine we picked up was the Serafino 2007 Nebbiolo.

I could tell you all about Nebbiolo but I won’t because that kind of clinical wine geekery belongs in a review when there’s no back story bar “I bought a bottle of wine”. I’m sure it is an established scientific fact* that visiting a cellar door slightly bends our perception of the wines, but hopefully, after three and a bit years, I can bring some objectivity to the glass.

In the glass, the wine is garnet and brick in colour, but this illusion of age is not backed up by a nose surprisingly dominant in fresh red berry fruit, which also shows tar, licorice, spiciness, wet bitumen and some perfumed, floral characters like lavender.

The fresh fruit also shows up on the palate with plenty of pronounced fresh red cherries, even cherry jam. There is a slight savoury kick and some licorice, but the wine is still very bright. There’s good acidity and grippy tannins but they don’t dry out your mouth.

A wine we both very much enjoyed. It’s a shame that Serafino no longer appears to make this wine because I would certainly be tempted to seek out current releases. I can’t remember how much we paid for it, though I know it didn’t fall into the bargain basement category. I should also confess that it’s been stored in what might be described as less than ideal conditions.

And if you need more emotive context – the Serafino cellar door is both impressive and pretty. It sits in large grounds, with a lake, and boasts both a restaurant, function centre and accommodation.

* This may be not be available as peer reviewed research but it’s certainly a well discussed phenomenon.

Tim Smith Wines 2010 Barossa Mataro Grenache Shiraz

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My notes now reveal I am just two months behind in my typing. At this rate, I’ll never be able to share with you any gems beyond the tasting notes themselves.

On several trips to the bottle shop I’ve noticed the small selection of Tim Smith Wines on the shelves and thought I should try one. If I recall correctly, at least one is outside my mid-week spend limit, but seeing a write up of the wines in general in a local paper, motivated me to actually get around to
buying one.

The blend of grapes is one which is comfortably familiar: Mataró, also known as Mourvèdre or Monastrell, Grenache and Shiraz are very often seen as a GSM blend and if you ever find yourself trying a Châteauneuf-du-Pape, or other Southern Rhône appellations, then you will most likely be drinking a similar blend. To see the M as the dominant grape variety is a little quirkier, but referring to it as the more pronounceable and spellable Mataró. While you’ll often see the grave accent on the French Mourvèdre, you’ll less frequently see the acute accent on the Catalan Mataró. Monastrell is Spanish and, really helpfully, between the two Iberian variants, they are also synonyms for other grapes. You have to keep your wits about you.

Now you’re confused … what about the wine? My notebook indicates that these notes were written on the second day the wine was open.

In the glass, appearance is medium intensity and a youthful ruby with just a touch of purple about it.

The nose shows berries, berry leaves and complexity in the form of licorice, tar and aniseed. On the palate, these aromas are rather reversed with the savoury characteristics, especially the spice and a cedar finish, outshining the fresh red and black berry fruit. I did note that the fruit was, unsurprisingly, a little diminished on the second day.

The wine has a good structure: acidity, tannins and alcohol are all in balance and the wine has a good length, with that lovely savoury finish.

As I typically prefer wines with something other than a bowlful of fresh fruit on the palate, this was right up my street. And, of course, immensely food friendly.

As is often the case with our local, this wine is a back vintage, but the current release (2012) is available from Tim Smith Wines for $28.

$25-$30 from Cellarbrations, Flagstaff Hill.
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14.5% abv.

Pertaringa 2010 Undercover Shiraz

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I feel like I should put a disclaimer on this – I’ve met socially a couple of people involved in Pertaringa and they’re really lovely. Of course that is going to colour how I feel about the wine. In addition, I don’t think I’ve had a wine from the Pertaringa/K1/Geoff Hardy stable that I haven’t enjoyed – and I have tried a few. If you’re a fan of alternative varieties, then these labels are a good place to start looking.

We don’t normally drink a lot of big South Australian Shiraz – we’re both much more likely to plump for a different variety (why, hello, Pinot Noir and Nebbiolo) and when we do drink the typical South Australian Shiraz it is usually something at a slightly higher price point with a bit of age on it.

All well and good but I was clearly in the mood for a big red when I bought this waaaay back in July. I have to say that at $19.99 (which is what I paid) this is definitely in the value for money bracket. You can easily pay more for a Shiraz that delivers less interest. This wine is very food friendly and approachable and that will make it a clever option for any time you need to take a wine somewhere. I figure that at this price point, a wine has to not make enemies. You should drink it, enjoy it and be sufficiently impressed that you would take it round to your mate’s house on the weekend for a BBQ or round to your mum’s house for Sunday roast. And by those criteria, the wine scores a big tick.

In the glass, the wine is intense purple-ruby in colour – it is young after all!

The nose is reasonably pronounced and shows vanilla, warm spice, blackberry and both black and red plum, with the black dominating.

In the mouth, I found this wine a trifle hot and this heat did rather dominate the wine’s finish. But it did have a ton of juicy black fruit, an almost over generous whack of vanilla and an ever so slightly savoury edge to it, adding a bit of interest. While the tannins were actually pretty grippy they do drop away so don’t be buying this wine for extended cellaring.

$20 from Cellarbrations, Flagstaff Hill.
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14.5% abv.

Henry’s Drive 2009 The Trial of John Montford Cabernet Sauvignon

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As I received this as a pigeon pair with the Dead Letter Office Shiraz, I thought it reasonable to taste (and post) them close together.

This wine is named for a local bushranger, John Montford, who was convicted for robbing a mail coach near Naracoorte. He had covered his face with a brown hanky, holes cut out for his eyes and this was recovered from his swag, thus providing the evidence for the conviction. CSI south eastern Australia style!

Anyway, that provides the wine with a colourful back story which is only well and good if the wine can deliver.

In the glass, a quite intense ruby red.

The nose was similarly intense, with blackcurrant and vanilla the most dominant notes, but also some minty and stalky characters along with a touch of soil and licorice.

In the mouth, there was a ton of juicy fresh blackcurrant, with some licorice and a touch of warm spice. The acidity and persistent tannins were well balanced and, despite its 14% abv, there was no heat.

I really liked this wine: I found it approachable, enjoyable and really lovely. I preferred this over the Shiraz by just a whisker (although my other half disagreed).

It looks like the only place you can purchase this wine is through Henry’s Drive.

And just so you know how subjective this wine tasting mullarkey is, this wine received 89 points in the James Halliday Wine Companion (2013), where it is described as “soft, simple and accessible” and yet Lisa Perotti-Brown MW (Wine Advocate) gave it 92 and wrote “this wine offers complex flavours”.

Proof that you need to make up your own mind (no hanky needed).

This wine was a sample.  RRP is $32.
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14% abv.

Henry’s Drive 2010 Dead Letter Office Shiraz

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One of the perks of my gig at (the sadly now defunct) Sumptuous was the lovely selection of wines I got to taste. While I did have input in the theme of the wines, and I did get to make suggestions as to wines to taste, there was always at least one wine I didn’t pick. Which I thought was great, because it was a surprise. And I’m also inherently pretty lazy. When it comes to dining out, the shorter the menu, the better. If it comes as a set menu – result. Set menu with matching wines – double result. I don’t have to make any decisions!

So I was pretty happy to visit my GPO box and find two bottles from Henry’s Drive. Henry’s Drive is based in Padthaway (Limestone Coast), in the south eastern corner of South Australia. It’s not a brand I’d come across before so I came to both bottles with no preconceptions.

Henry’s Drive has the bulk of its vineyards in Padthaway, with just 30 acres in McLaren Vale. The fruit for this Shiraz is sourced from both regions: an almost even split in this release, the scales just tipping slightly in favour of McLaren Vale (55:45).

In the glass the wine was intense. Ruby red in colour, with a pronounced nose showing black plum, spice, licorice and tar. There was also a hint of vegetal character.

This black fruit dominance carried through onto the palate but there was also vanilla, spice and a touch of black pepper on the back palate. The wine had a lovely savoury finish with an aniseed/licorice kick to it. The wine had a good level of acidity and soft tannins that provided weight and structure but weren’t drying. The tannins, alcohol and fruit were all very well integrated, making this a well balanced and easy to drink wine. It might be 14.5% alcohol but you wouldn’t know it.  While this is lovely to drink now, you don’t need to be in a hurry to drink it either.

Although this was a sample, the RRP is $25. If I’d paid $25 for it I’d have been pretty happy. The internet suggests that you may be lucky and able to find it under $20, in which case you’d be even happier.

This wine was a sample.
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14.5% abv.

Greywacke 2011 Sauvignon Blanc

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greywacke

At home I have a fruit bowl and in that fruit bowl goes not only fruit but all the scraps of paper on which I’ve written tasting notes.

I do also have a tasting notebook but today the fruit bowl is closer and so, in what is best described as a lucky dip, I pulled out a pile of tasting notes that I’d written on wines I’d used in a WSET course. The notes are dated 19 August. That’s not 10 days ago – that’s 375 days ago. I’m sure that gives you some kind of insight into me … not entirely sure what it says though!

As a rule, I am not a fan of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc. Not because I have an issue with them, per se, but they’ve become such a lazy choice for a certain type of drinker. I’ve actually been out with people who look somewhat crestfallen when there isn’t a NZ Sav Blanc on a wine list. Similarly, I hate that so often wine lists overlook good, local examples and yet feature a raft of second string NZ wines.

Little rant over. I am a massive fan of Greywacke. My first introduction to the brand was the Riesling (one seriously exciting wine there) and, as one of the required wines to teach at Level 2 is a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, this has become very much my go to wine.

Greywacke is run by Kevin Judd, a nice bloke, who also happens to be ex Cloudy Bay. He should know what he’s doing with Sauvignon Blanc. And he does.

While these notes aren’t on the current release, the few vintages I’ve tried have been pretty consistent of wines, so the following will give you an idea of what you will get, even if not an exact match. The wine is usually well received (and well liked) in class too.

In the glass the wine is very pale yellow. So pale that it’s almost water white.

As you’d expect with a Sauvignon Blanc, the nose is pronounced with pungent green pea and passionfruit, with hints of green capsicum, gooseberry and even a touch of the obligatory cat’s pee.

In the mouth, good acidity backs up a palate which shows a lot more tropical fruit. The passionfruit is definitely there, much more pronounced than on the nose and there’s just a whisper of green capsicum. Good length.

The current available release in Adelaide appears to be the 2012 which you will be able to pick up for around $25-$30 from good bottle shops such as The Ed Cellars and East End Cellars.

Greywacke also produces a Wild Ferment Sauvignon Blanc which is slightly more expensive.

Freeman 2007 Secco

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I’m sure I’ve said this before but … While my local bottle shop caters for a middle of the road audience, if you have a bit of a dig around its various nooks and crannies you can often a gem. It might be a back vintage, it might be something a bit weird or from a small producer, or it might be at a bargain price.

In the 2007 Freeman Secco pretty much all of these boxes were ticked. It so happened that only a couple of days earlier I’d read Andrew Graham’s review of the 2009 (current release) on Oz Wine Review but even if I hadn’t recognised it from that, the fact that it’s a Rondinella Corvina blend made in Australia would have been enough to see me buy it.

Rondinella and Corvina are grapes that you’d normally find in wines from the Veneto in north eastern Italy. Heard of Valpolicella? You might have come across it in an Italian restaurant. It’s a lighter weight, food friendly Italian red from the Veneto and Corvina and Rondinella are two thirds of its makeup (the other third being Molinara).

Hanging around in Italy, the flavours of Valpolicella might be intensified by drying out some of the grapes prior to fermentation. This boosts the intensity of the flavours and also rounds off the wine with a distinctive bitterness. These are wines you’ll find sold as Amarone.

The Secco is cut from this cloth, with a portion of the grapes dried out in a prune dehydrator. The wine spends two years in oak before bottle and a further two years before release.

One final fun wine fact: Freeman is the only one or two wineries in Australia with Rondinella and Corvina grapes, so if you see this wine, grab it and give it a go.

How does it taste? Thanks to twitter, I was advised to decant the wine for about 6 hours before tasting, and it definitely held up and improved over a couple of days.

In the glass, medium-minus intensity, ruby in colour, perhaps with a tinge of garnet.

The nose was quite pronounced and showed fresh raspberries and vanilla (how good does that sound?), with a hint of undergrowth and spiciness.

That raspberry carried through to the palate, with a hit of fruit sweetness at the front of the palate. It was a really structured wine with good, quite drying tannins and very good acidity. There were herbal notes, with licorice and anise characters and a bitter almond yet savoury finish, and good length.

This was an impressive wine: I found it approachable, complex and with a good balance of fruit and savoury on the palate.

Absolutely something to satisfy your inner wine geek, but will work just as well with dinner!

This wine was purchased from Cellarbrations Flagstaff Hill for $30. Don’t bother making enquiries – I bought the last two bottles!
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15% abv.

BoomBoom! 2011 Syrah

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Something I need to do is not walk into a bottle shop until I’ve actually made a decision about what I’m going to buy. Almost without fail, I will stand slack jawed, looking at the wines, unable to choose. Mostly, this is because I want to choose something interesting and different and new and exciting and with those kinds of criteria it’s too easy to dismiss almost everything on the shelves as not quite up to standard.

I was having one of those days on Wednesday, when I wandered into East End Cellars. Normally I am quite on the ball but other than knowing that I wanted a red, I was dismissing a lot of wines out of hand and getting grumpier by the minute.

Then my eyes alighted on the Boom Boom!. Had this wine been from the Barossa or McLaren Vale I’d probably still be sitting here, thirsty and grumpy. But this is a Syrah from Washington (state, in the north west corner of the US). I’m pretty sure I haven’t had a WA Shiraz/Syrah before (I’m actually pretty sure I haven’t had a WA anything before) but I do know I have two pretty special bottles from that region in the cellar awaiting a ‘special occasion’. This wine would be a figurative dipping of the toes in the water.

The wine is made by Charles Smith Wines, a producer about whom I know nothing. So do I tell you about shiraz, the producer, the region? That’s a good question. I think the region is worth a mention because many people seem unaware that places in the US outside California produce wine. I guess if you mention Washington to an Australian they’ll think of either Starbucks or Microsoft or both. And maybe Frasier, if they’re old enough.

I’m not going to claim to be familiar with wines of the Pacific North-West but I have had a couple of Pinot Noirs from Oregon – both pretty classy wines at their respective price points. Washington is further north again than Oregon and borders Canada, so this is not hot climate wine making. The state’s first vines were planted in 1825 and the first winery appeared at Walla Walla in the 1860s, although vitis vinifera grapes (the ones we typically associate with winemaking) weren’t planted until 1871. Today there are over 700 wineries, with red wines dominating production.

In the glass, this wine looks young. It’s quite deep and intense and very purple/ruby in colour.

The nose is quite pronounced, with forest fruits, undergrowth and a pleasing earthiness to it. There’s a layer of vanilla over the top and some licorice and aniseed notes.

On the palate, there was some really tart, almost crunchy, red and black fruits at the start which are rounded out by some bitter chocolate. The tannins are soft but there’s good acidity and quite a good mouthfeel. The wine does finish slightly hot (it’s only 13.5% abv) but I think that’s a case of there not being quite enough fresh fruit going on. While the length was not bad the fresh fruit really dropped away quickly and I’d describe this as quite a lean wine.

If you’re after a big bold Australian style fruit bomb, then this wine is not for you, but I actually quite enjoyed it.

What I didn’t enjoy was that I paid $32 for it. At that price, it’s underperforming. However, if you’re lucky enough to live in America, the current release (the ’12) retails for $US15 (which translates as $AU16 and frankly, if I’d paid that for it, I’d be a LOT more enthusiastic).

This wine was purchased from East End Cellars for $32.
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13.5% abv.