Author: Alex Prichard

Paco & Lola 2010 Rias Baixas Albariño

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Proof, if you needed it, that it’s been hot in Adelaide and that I don’t water my lawn enough.

When I wrote about the Tscharke Savagnin I talked a little about Albariño and how we managed to get it slightly wrong here in Australia. It does rather make me wonder how much verification has gone on in Spain and Portugal to ensure that what’s being bottled as Albariño is actually Albariño. Having said that, I note that Wine Grapes (which lists it under its Portuguese name, Alvarinho) makes a similar observation …

Anyway, on the (very pretty) bottle we’re assured that this Paco & Lola offering is indeed Albariño from Rias Baixas, Galicia, north western Spain.

In the glass, it is a pale gold. The nose doesn’t leap from the glass but does show apple, pear and pear drops, with a very slight perfumed note, along with an elusive nutty character.

On the palate, citrus dominates the flavour profile but it does have a nutty, savoury twist to it, along with a hint of spice. Acidity and length are both pretty good, although the wine finishes slightly hot. The wine has a really lovely weight and mouthfeel but the line of acidity keeps it refreshing. I particularly enjoyed the play between these two aspects of the wine.

I really enjoyed drinking this wine and would definitely suggest looking at it if you are looking for something different without being too madly challenged by it. This is a very approachable wine and it won’t make you think too much or too hard.

This wine was purchased from East End Cellars for $28.
Closure: screw cap.
13.5% abv

Adelaide Hills Crush Festival

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View Crush – Cellared Guide in a larger map

Direct link to map: https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=205193576936381767862.0004d3ca3c382723bce9e&msa=0

This weekend sees the Adelaide Hills play host to the Crush Festival. Most of the events take place on Sunday but a few wineries are hosting events across the long weekend.

When you’re out visiting a wine region you always need to know where the closest cellar door is, so I’ve put together a google map detailing all the participating cellar doors as well as some information about opening times, events and whether bookings are required.

I’ve taken the information from the Crush brochure. The beauty is that when you’re out and about this weekend, you’ll be able to load up this map on your smartphone and work out where to head to next. In theory, no wasted time driving around in circles and no disappointment on arriving somewhere and discovering it’s hosting a ticketed only event.

Let me know what you think!

42°S Premier Cuvée

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On the weekend we bought a new car. This was not an exciting car purchase – more one borne of necessity after our trusty old car was crumpled by an SUV neglecting to stop. With both time frame and budget severely limited we were so pleased with our efforts that I decided celebratory bubbles were in order.

I ducked into a wine shop I don’t normally visit and I felt that I was a little bit spoilt for choice with novel wines. After some umming and ahhing, I chose the 42° South Premier Cuvée made by Frogmore Creek in Tasmania. This decision was ultimately based on the fact that, at $25 a bottle, it was $5 cheaper than my initial choice!

Pale gold in the glass, with the nose requiring some thought. Milk arrowroot biscuits and lemon are the two things that immediately spring to mind. In the mouth, the mousse is fine, persistent and foamy. There’s good acidity which drives lemon, shortbread, a hint of brioche and some simple red berry fruit (strawberry). There is even a hint of chalkiness. The length is pretty good.

This is a good wine: it’s straightforward and not particularly complex. The flavours are not so much obvious as a little one dimensional. Having said that – I am talking about a wine that retails at $25 and is a non vintage bubbles, and both the wine’s length and acidity deserve a big tick.

Sparkling wine at this price point seems to be particularly competitive at the moment. There are equivalent (or even slightly better) wines that you can spend less on, and there is a lot of choice out there. $25 is fair money for this wine and if I were to spot this on special, I’d definitely buy this again. If you have the spare $10 or so, then I would buy this in preference to Blue Pyrenees Luna.

This wine was purchased from Cellarbrations, Brighton for $25.
Closure: Diam.
12% abv

 

 

Artigiano 2011 Grillo

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For Christmas I was given Wine Grapes by Jancis Robinson et al. This is the newest, most current wine bible and for people like me who like trying something new and different, it’s a handy tome for planning what to drink next, and where one might have to holiday to try some of the world’s more esoteric varieties.

Hot weather here in Adelaide has meant lots of white wine and most of it in the shape of Riesling or Chardonnay. Andy was dispatched to East End Cellars with a shortlist of three wines. He came home with the Artigiano Grillo, an IGT wine (meaning it’s typical of its geographical region) from Sicily, Italy.

Artigiano is the producer and Grillo is the grape. Grillo’s byline in Wine Grapes is that it’s an “increasingly popular high-quality, full-bodied western Sicilian white”. You may see it as a DOC wine (ostensibly a higher quality level), but you also see it (as here) as an IGT. It is described as “full bodied”, “slightly herbaceous or floral”. In Australia, it’s not yet making any real headway – Vinodiversity suggests that just just one producer, ByJingo, is producing it.  While it’s not listed on the ByJingo website, ByJingo on twitter reliably informs me that it is available.  I hope to be able to try some in the next few weeks.

In the meantime … the Artigiano.

Pale gold in the glass, and a nose of apple, pear, pear drops and preserved lemon. These don’t leap out of the glass but you don’t have to search too hard for them either. On the palate, good acidity and the wine is a lot richer and oilier than the nose might lead you to expect. On the palate you start to get some herbal notes, mixed in with poached pears and apples and a burst of clean citrus/lemon. The finish is slightly bitter, but not in an unattractive way. The wine isn’t particularly long and what length there is dominated by acidity and alcohol.

So this wine is OK.  I’m probably not rushing off to buy it again but at the same time I’d drink it and not be unhappy.  It’s relatively neutral so it’s unlikely to make enemies.

The real point of interest here is the cost – it was just $16. So for under $20 you get an imported wine, a new grape variety and it’s eminently drinkable.

Job done.

This wine was purchased from East End Cellars for $16.
Closure: screw cap.
13% abv

Mountadam High Eden NV Sparkling Pinot Noir Chardonnay

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Quite often Andy is dispatched on a wine buying mission for me. I don’t think he enjoys this experience so I always try to pick out at least one thing for him to buy (more than one just in case option 1 is not in stock). Wine stores – this is why you need to have an up to date and comprehensive list on your website.

One Friday he was dispatched on such a mission and I randomly picked the Mountadam High Eden NV Sparkling Pinot Noir Chardonnay. I’d love to provide you with a link to the actual wine but either the Mountadam website is really out of date or the horrible Flash monstrosity that appears to be the “Wines” page doesn’t render correctly in my browser of choice. I’ve actually really struggled to find you any other information about this wine on the internet although if you have a subscription you may care to check out The Wine Front, which at least is relatively recent and not trying to sell you the wine.

So now you’re just going to have to trust me.

In the glass the wine is quite gold in colour, with lots of bubbles*. The nose is not particularly pronounced but there’s Granny Smith, rose and strawberry. The palate has plenty of crisp acidity but I did feel there was perhaps just a touch too much tart/bitter lemon action. All these tart flavours dominate: Granny Smith and citrus but not enough sweetness (as in flavour sweetness, not actual sugar in the wine) for me. I’d like some of that strawberry that was on the nose to come through on the palate. The wine does have good length but it’s clean and simple, rather than offering complex and developing flavours. I also didn’t get any of the bready, yeasty notes that I like to find in bubbles, but more I was disappointed by the lack of fruit sweetness on the palate.

I paid (well, Andy, as my proxy) paid $24 for this wine. At this price point, I think there are better and/or more interesting wines you can buy. However, if you could pick this wine up sub $20 I’d definitely give it a go.

Given its flavour profile, I’d recommend drinking this as an apéritif wine, rather than trying to pair it. Maybe it’d work with oysters though.

This wine was purchased from East End Cellars for $24.
Closure: cork.

* Yes, I’m aware this is more to do with the glass and how clean it is and less to do with the wine. If this type of wine geekery interests you, check out this piece from The Guardian’s Word of Mouth blog.

Seghesio 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel

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I love this wine. And I probably love it for all the wrong reasons.

When I lived in Leeds I picked up a bottle from Latitude Wine. If I recall correctly, I believe it cost around £17 and, as my wine buying budget was always around the £15 mark, warranted a little bit of discussion. Wine was duly opened, tasted, with notes made and then drunk.

A few months later I was down in London to take the WSET‘s educator course. Because I was only taking the course to teach levels 1 and 2 I wasn’t expecting to have to do the guided tasting part of the assessment, so it was a surprise when I, too, had to pull a wine from a hat. My wine? The Seghesio Old Vine Zin. Even more miraculously, I actually had my tasting notes with me so I was able to refresh my memory in preparation. I suspect had I not passed the tasting exam I’d hate this wine, but I did so I have lots of happy memories associated with it.

I picked up two bottles at auction for just under $40 a bottle. The current release is the 2009 which the Seghesio website lists at $US38 so I think I got a pretty good deal here.

Zinfandel isn’t a wine that I personally associate with great ageing potential so I figured that I best crack open a bottle and see how it’s travelling.

In the glass the wine is very intense and sits somewhere between ruby and garnet.

Initially this wine was a little warm (remedied by 10 minutes in the fridge) and the whopping 15.5% alcohol was evident everywhere. However, once I’d cooled the wine down a touch, the nose was all about black fruit. Black currant, blackberry, black plum, black fruit jam, but all mixed in with a lot of spice and cedar.

On the palate, that black fruit was all there again, with some black pepper, fruit cake, chocolate and a licorice like finish with a hint of tar or tobacco. The tannins were very very soft and well integrated and there was just a touch of acidity (much needed to cut through all that rich fruit).

In educator mode, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that all that luxurious ripe fruit (and the high alcohol) should be suggesting to you that this is a wine from a warm to hot climate. Also, don’t be fooled into thinking the wine is sweet – it does have a silly amount of ripe fruit and those flavours can trick you into finding sugar that’s just not there. This is a 100% dry wine.

The truckloads of fruit here suggest to me that I don’t need to rush out to drink the other bottle but, given the low levels of acidity and very soft tannins, I won’t be putting it away for another 6 years either. I drank this bottle on Christmas Eve and I’d envisage drinking the next one within the next year.

Wines like this make me very happy. It’s so disappointing that they’re tricky to come across in Australia.

This wine was purchased at auction from Wickmans, for $35 + 11% buyer’s premium.
Closure: cork.

Blue Pyrenees NV Luna

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Quite a while ago I was trawling the sparkling aisles of Dan Murphy’s (something I usually find pretty depressing as it’s a very predictable and both limiting and limited selection) when I saw the Blue Pyrenees Luna. This is a non vintage offering, but is still produced in a “méthode traditionelle” manner. Technically, this means that the secondary fermentation process takes place in the bottle, and is generally something to look out for when seeking out a potentially better than average sparkling.

The Luna retails around $16 and last time my family got together there was some vigorous debate about whether or not the extra $10 represents money well spent. As Andy pointed out the Midnight Cuvée (a popular go to wine in our family) is ⅔ more expensive but is it that much better than the Luna? Some of us were firmly in the camp that we liked the Midnight Cuvée more and, without analytically measuring the degree to which we liked it more, we were happy to spend the extra money.

Family debate aside, the wine is medium gold in colour and the nose is moderately pronounced: buttered toast, citrus with a hint of toasted pandoro too. On the palate, there is less of those yeasty, bready notes (these are all thanks to the méthode traditionelle production) and more straightforward citrus. There’s a touch of berry fruitiness too, which closes out the wine. This is a really nicely balanced wine, particularly in terms of flavour. It’s lacking in complexity and doesn’t have the acidity and length to get too excited about. But wait – we’re talking about a sparkling wine which sits well under $20 so we shouldn’t be too demanding, either.

I wouldn’t put this as my favourite sparkling at this price point (at the moment, that gong goes to the Deutz from Marlborough, which pains me as I’d rather buy Australian) but this wine definitely represents good value for money.

As to whether it’s dollar for dollar better value than the Midnight Cuvée, I suggest you buy a bottle of each and make your own mind up!

Zenith 2012 Sauvignon Blanc

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This wine was part of a mixed case we bought from some random on line deal. It was super cheap: I think it worked out at about $5 or $6 a bottle and the logic was that at least we’d have some wine kicking around the house for vinous emergencies.

It’s a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and was produced by New Zealand Wine Cellars. If you google that it won’t take you too long to figure out where we bought it from. Or just read to the bottom!

The nose was pronounced gooseberry with a hint of something vegetal – think asparagus or green pea, but don’t get too specific.

On the palate, the acidity wasn’t bad at all but it wasn’t very persistent. The palate was very green and wrapped up with a touch of passionfruit. The length was not great and for me the wine finished slightly hot, with a bitter edge which wasn’t that pleasant.

It was as though a lot of effort had been put into ensuring those typical primary fruit flavours were there, but not a lot of thought had gone into the wine as a whole.

This is a wine that absolutely delivers on typicity and I suspect that it does the job for die hard NZ Sav Blanc drinkers. I can’t utter any wise words about how it compares with other Savvy Bs available at this price point.

Clean, but boring and homogenous, and the finish really doesn’t work for me.

This wine was purchased from Cellarmasters, as part of a mixed dozen, average bottle price about $6.
Closure: screw cap.

Tscharke 2011 Girl Talk Savagnin

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Once upon a time, Australia’s white wine vineyards were planted to Riesling. Then to Chardonnay. And then everyone started looking for the next great white.

People got excited because it looked like Albariño, a white grape from Galicia in northern Spain, was going to be it. Interesting wines were being made. It was a distinctive name that was easy to pronounce.

And then it turned out it wasn’t Albariño at all. A French ampelographer (that’s someone who knows a LOT about vine leaves) spotted the problem and, in this day and age, a bit of forensics (OK, just DNA testing) revealed that Australia’s next big thing was actually Savagnin. Cue massive relabelling efforts and more than one out of pocket producer.

Today, Savagnin is grown almost exclusively in the Jura, in France – and Australia. Even though I know the story above well, it’s not a variety with which I’d call myself familiar. Tscharke has a good reputation and, at just under $20 a bottle, I was keen to dip my toe in the water.

A very pale gold wine in the glass, it had a pronounced nose: loads of stone fruit (particularly, I think, apricot), backed up with floral, chalky and citrus notes. Very very appealing. On the palate there was a big lemon/lime hit along with a ton of stone fruit (peach, this time). There was some good acidity, the length was not bad – accompanied by some flavour development, and the wine wrapped up with a slightly nutty, oily finish.

Andy’s comment that the wine was refreshing and “pretty nice”. “Pretty nice” is usually as effusive as he gets – so take that as a recommendation.

At the $20 price point I’d be more than happy to drink this wine again. I have no idea how, in the long term, producers will go with marketing Savagnin. I suspect for most consumers that the name is too close to Sauvignon, and the wine too different from Sauvignon Blanc, for it to make a big impact commercially without some serious effort. I find it interesting that producers have gone for the name Savagnin, because the UC Davis National Grape Registry lists many synonyms that might have had more marketing clout (Aida, for instance, would have been quite cool).

A wine, and a variety, to look out for.

The wine was purchased from Dan Murphy’s for $18.99.
Closure:  screw cap.

Greenock Creek Seven Acre Shiraz 1995

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Yep – you read that right – 1995. This wine has been loitering in the cellar – not being drunk because it was “too good” or “too special” (and, for a good chunk of that time because I was living on the other side of the world). Mostly, I drag a bottle out of the cellar and it’s turned to vinegar which is neither too good nor too special. There have been some notable exceptions but they are few and far between. Drink your wine people – the special occasion just needs to be a Friday or Saturday night.

Greenock Creek doesn’t appear to bother with a website but the wines are held in high regard and command scary prices. I’m vaguely depressed by the fact that, as a poor uni student, I was able to afford this wine which, if I could find it now, would probably set me back the best part of $100 (the current release seems to retail around $50-60). In June 1998 Robert Parker Jnr scored this wine 98 in Wine Advocate. While I care very little for scores, this is interesting because 1995 was not an awesome year in the Barossa. Of course, that was 14 years ago and most of the drinking windows I could find suggested that this wine would be past its best.

Well, it was past its best but it was by no means knackered.

The cork came out cleanly, easily and in one piece – something that always fills me with hope!

In the glass it is surprisingly youthful – less dense than you expect from a Barossa Shiraz but still pleasingly garnet in colour.

On the nose, blackberries, soft, old leather, and slightly meaty, with just a whiff of the fortified about it.

The palate still has masses of blackfruit – surprisingly so, there’s good acidity and chewy tannins but they are now drying, which is disappointing. There’s also anise and dark, bitter chocolate.

Almost a text book aged Shiraz, really. No doubt had this been drunk a few years ago it would have an amazing wine.

This wine was bought at the cellar door in October 1997. I didn’t record the price.
Closure: cork.

* I care very little for scores but note this here for interest.