I often get asked the question, “Do like like Shiraz,” or “Do you like Chardonnay,” or something similar. Recently, I was asked if I like Port. I do! But what is Port? True Port wine or Vinho do Porto comes from the Douro Valley in Portugal. There are over 100 grape varietals sanctioned for making Port wine. Additionally, many other countries make Port-styled wines. With so many differences in the grapes, the regions grown and styles of Port, it is almost impossible to define what Port wine is. It comes sweet, semi-sweet and dry. It comes as single vintages (Vintage Port) or Tawney Port which is often multiple vintages aged for several years in wood and blended to provide some interesting characteristics.
The other evening my brother-in-law and his family were staying with us and we decided to drink some Port wine after dinner. I started with my regular drinking Port which is currently the 2004 Dow Vintage Port. I have one bottle of the 1977 Dow Vintage Port (for a special occasion and to drink with great pleasure over a short period of time in the not too distant future). I also have two bottles of the 2007 Dow Vintage Port which is one of the highest rated vintages ever, but those two bottles will be lying in the cellar for another 20 years or so before I touch them. The 2004 Dow Vintage Port is a very nice wine. This wine matured early and is easily drinkable now. It is fruity and has softened, especially when the bottle has been open for a while. This wine is very inexpensive ($12 – $15 per bottle in the US and about $25 – $30 per bottle in Australia) and provides for a great-valued drink. A truly wonderful drink for the money, but should be drunk over the next few years.
We then tried a bottle of Penfolds Grandfather Tawny Port. This is a non-vintaged Port blended across eight years with the vintages all being 20 years old or so. This wine was very, very smooth and had a completely different mouthfeel to the 2004 Dow Vintage Port. The Penfolds Granfather Tawny Port had a luscious, smooth feeling with caramelized, nutty sugars. The wine reminded me of the recent Christmas fruit cakes with brandy I had eaten – thick, juicy and sweet. A completely different style of Port from the 2004 Dow Vintage Port.
We then opened a bottle of the 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port. This ismy last bottle and while not quite as good as the 1954 and the 1957 Lindemans Vintage Ports I have had, it is a magnificent wine. I had some problems getting the cork out being soggy after 35 years in the bottle! Even the Ah So corkscrew was not able to help and ultimately, I ended up with the cork in the bottle. Yet, I was able to pour us a glass and we had just experienced our third very different Port that evening! The 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port was very big with plummy fruit flavors, luscious to the feel on the tongue beautiful, but slightly medicinal smells.
Therefore, when asked if I like Port, the answer is a resounding YES! I like the wide variety of Ports available from Vintage to Tawny, young and old, but particularly very old (30 years or more). Ports take on so many different identities with various flavors and styles made from so many different varietals of grapes that it is impossible to classify Port as a single type of wine. There are many different Ports, but any good Port is a great companion when sitting down in the evening and reading a good book.
But visiting The Hunter Valley is first and foremost about wine, so we will start there. With over 150 wineries in The Hunter Valley, there is bound to be some differences of opinion, so let me start off by saying that my recommendations do not mean I am recommending the very best wines in The Hunter Valley, even though that is a large component of my ratings. I often get asked what are the best wineries to visit, often with the qualification of wanting to find a secret or lesser known one off the beaten path, and not just be directed to the ‘big boys.’ But it would be a discredit to some of the big boys to leave them off the list. I am offering my opinions based on (1) wine quality, (2) landscape and ambiance, and (3) any other unique or interesting features to consider.
From my point of view, the clear winner as the best winery in The Hunter Valley is Tyrrell’s Wines. They are located on Broke Road in Pokolbin. This is the safest stop of any winery as they have the best wines from whites to reds and in every price range. Everyone can find a wine here they enjoy. The prices are very reasonable. Tyrrell’s is also an Australian First Families of Wine and is one of the oldest multi-generational winemaking families in Australia. They have beautiful views, are host to the annual Jazz in the Vines jazz day and concerts and provide interesting tours of the vineyards and winery.
Tyrrell’s is known for their iconic and numerously awarded Vat 1 Semillon and Vat 9 Shiraz among many great wines. The 1999 Tyrrels’ Vat 1 is listed as one of the 1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die. The 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 received so many Gold medals they have to overlap them to fit them all on the bottle! They also offer a very nice loyalty program. If I do not know who the audience is who asking where to visit, I will state Tyrrell’s is a must stop. Many of the very best Australian winemakers got their start at Tyrrell’s.
#2 overall winery in The Hunter Valley: Meerea Park
Similar to Tyrrell’s, Meerea Park has excellent wines, both white and red in all price ranges. The winemaker, Rhys Eather, is one of the annointed six Next Generation Winemakers in the Hunter Valley. He makes truly outstanding wines. Their top-end Alexander Munro series museum wines will last a quarter century or longer. The biggest, best Shiraz I have ever had is the 1998 Meerea Park Alexander Munro and it is still tight at 15 years of age! On the other end is their XYZ series of wines, which are outstanding wines and great value for the money. Meerea Park just moved into the Tempus Two complex at the corner of MacDonalds and Broke Roads in Pokolbin. They also are a small family-owned business with Rhys making the wine and Garth selling it. I have learned a lot about wine just chatting with Garth who is open and friendly.
McWilliams Mount Pleasant is another winery with great selection of whites and reds in all price brackets. They have excellent Semillons and Shiraz and a very nice Muscato from Evans & Tate. They have magnificent facilities in terms of cellar door, tasting rooms, a nice restaurant, and also have some of the most beautiful vistas in The Hunter Valley. McWilliams is often a starting point of breakfast followed by a mid- or late-morning tasting before heading off elsewhere. If you are into the facilities and scenery, you would place McWilliams as #1 or #2 winery in your list of Hunter Valley wineries. One of my very favorite wines is the 2007 Maurice O’Shea Shiraz which Campbell Mattinson awarded as the best Australian Shiraz for that year. McWilliams is also in the elite Australian First Families of Wine group.
In my book, De Iuliis Wines under the ownership of Mike De Iuliis makes the best reds available. De Iuliis, year-in, year-out makes some of the best Shiraz in The Hunter Valley. He also now controls arguably the best Shiraz vineyard (Steven vineyard) in The Hunter Valley. Michael is also one of the six Next Generation Winemakers in the Hunter Valley. Visiting the cellar door at De Iuliis is a great experience. The produce great white wines also, but I focus on buying my reds from DeIuliis. They also have a nice restaurant and craft shop. De Iuliis is located on Broke Road just down past Tyrrell’s. The thing I love about De Iuliis is that you often find Michael behind the counter or just around the corner and their cellar door manager is among the most knowledgeable around. You always get great service and tastings at De Iuliis.
There is a lot of great Semillon and Chadonnay wine produced in the Hunter Valley and based on vintage, a number of wineries could qualify for this award. But overall, year-in, year-out, one of the best tasting experiences of white wines comes at Scarborough. They have two locations in the Hunter Valley and I still like the original location on Gillards Road as the best in terms of scenery and ambiance. Their newer location is on Hermitage Road. They make three quite different style Chardonnays and I personally like the White Label the best. Their tastings are one of the best run I have been involved in and it is always a privilege to bring people to Scarborough for a tasting.
View from Audrey Wilkinson winery
Best all-around visit, landscape and architecture: Audrey Wilkinson
Audrey Wilkinson’s is perched up DeBeyers Road in Pokolbin. It has beautiful vistas and the architecture and buildings are among the most beautiful of any winery in The Hunter Valley. But they would not make the list unless they had great wines also. They have some excellent whites and reds in all price ranges. Their Wrattonbully Cabernet Sauvignon is among the best I have had. This is a great place to visit, taste and take pictures.
I had heard of McLeish Estate for some time, but with so many other great Hunter Valley wineries I was already familiar with, I never made it by to try their wines. But when I read that their 2007 Reserve Semillon took global honors, I knew I had to stop by and try them out. And so glad that I did! They have an excellent lineup of wines, with the Reserve Chardonnay and Semillon really being outstanding. They also have an excellent Rose which got me drinking Rose again after 30 years and I am glad I did!
McLeish Estates is on the other side of DeBeyers Road (from Audrey Wilkinson) and behind Lake Folly’s so you know they have some excellent parcels of land for growing grapes. What I love about McLeish is that it is a true family run business. If daughter Jessica is not behind the counter, then parents Bob and Maryanne are. Bob tends the vines when not serving and Maryanne the accounts when not serving. This is a great place to visit and show your visitors you know The Hunter Valley and all of its special spots! And Andrew Thomas is the Chief winemaker, another one of the six Next Generation Hunter Valley Winemakers.
Other wineries of note and worth a visit
I have picked out 7 of the 150 or so wineries in The Hunter Valley and each deserves a visit. The other great thing about these wineries is that they are within kilometers of each other and it is possible to do all 7 in one day or over a weekend. But there are so many other good wineries to try including Lindemans, Brokenwood (both in the heart of Pokolbin), Margans (past Tyrrell’s and De Iuliis) for tasting and food, Two Rivers in the Upper Hunter Valley (about 75 minutes away), Waverley Estates for some of the best aged white wines you can find, De Bertoli for stickies, Tamburlaine for organic wines, Tintilla Estate for Sangiovese and Shiraz, and so on.
Another one I am going to try is 201 in Rothbury. They make wines out of secondary grapes such as Durif, Chambourcin, and Barbera in addition to Semillon. I have heard good things about this winery and it being another family-run labor of love. I am going to check it out next time I am in The Hunter Valley.
These are the wineries I take my visitors to first and make for a great day or weekend out. But, of course, one has to eat when drinking wine all day, so my next post on The Hunter Valley will focus on where to eat. Until them happy drinking!
Yes, in general and in my opinion! Let’s find out why I believe that.
I dislike the idea of fusion concepts, especially when it comes to food. Call me a traditionalist, but I find food that has stood the test of centuries, yet alone millenniums, to be among the very best food one can eat. I love Italian food and I love Indian food, but I do not favor blending the two into a single meal. Curry pastas just don’t work for me. I love Japanese and I love Tex-Mex, but I could not bring myself to even try this fusion concept in one of the hotel restaurants in Sacramento, CA when visiting a while back. The raw tuna quesadillas just did not work for me. Globalization has done a lot to change the world, but when it comes to fusion food, it has only made it worse!
But when it comes to wine blends, I am really starting to favor blends over 100% varietals. Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE my 100% varietals when it comes to my favorite grapes such as Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Riesling. But year-in, year-out, it is impossible to get consistent sugar and alcohol levels, with each vintage being affected by that year’s heat index and rainfall causing some vintages to be different in taste than others vintages. That is when a good winemaker can use some of the characteristics of other grapes to provide a better overall taste, by adding a touch of sweetness, or subduing too much sweetness by adding a grape with more acidity or sourness. Good winemakers know how to blend a little bit of another grape or several grapes together to make good to great wines. Even Penfolds Grange over the years has had various amounts of Cabernet Sauvignon blended in to achieve its maximum potential for a particular vintage. Based on what country the wine is from and the local laws, you may still label a bottle of wine by its main varietal as long as the amount of the other grape added is still small, usually less than 15%.
But other wines, especially old world wines have been crafted to be great wines by using various blending combinations. Wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape are predominantly Grenache, but also are allowed to blend in wine from twelve other varietals. Bordeaux blends are primarily Cabernet Sauvignon, but contain a variety of other grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and possibly small amounts of Petit Verdot or Malbec. A classic high-quality Bordeaux blend is 70% Cabernet Sauvignon, 15% Merlot, and 15% Cabernet Franc. Australia is well-known and respected for its Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon blends such as you would find in a Penfolds Bin 389 or a Lindemans Limestone Ridge. And more and more, I am loving a wine blend called GSM of Grenache, Shiraz, Mourvedre. And for white wine, I find the blend of Gewürztraminer and Riesling to be a very nice drink.
More and more, I am enjoying my blends and the craftmanship of the winemaker to get the blends to get the most of of the grapes. The nuances that can develop and the integration of various characteristics provide for a most enjoyable drinking experience. Maybe I am just become more old-world myself, but I find blends age better, are more complex and more balanced, and generally are a bit softer with a smoother mouth feel.
If you have not tried many blends, then I think it is about time you do! And I would appreciate your views and feedback on if you are a single-grape purist or prefer the multidimensional characteristics of a blend.
My wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, is making a magnificent slow cooked beef with mushrooms and barley for this evening! I have been smelling it cook for the last two hours and getting ravenous! We will have a serve of Quinoa and a light salad as sides. With such a combinations of flavors going on, we thought a nice Bordeaux style blend would go really well with this meal. I have had one bottle left of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus which I have been saving to enjoy with some friends, but we just have not been able to arrange a meal together (well, we did, but had a bottle of the 2001 Henscke Hill of Grace with that meal). Fortunately for them, we still have two bottles of the 1992 Lindeman’s Limestone Ridge which I am sure we will drink together.
The ’92 Pyrus is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. I love this blend as each flavor comes through. I have written about this wine previously, when I pulled a bottle out and we had it with soup! You can refer to that post to get a review of the wine. As with that bottle, the cork was perfect on and the sample of wine I had while decanting indicates that this is a slightly fresher and fruitier bottle than the last one we tried. It should be a perfect match for the dinner. We once again will be serving this wine in the Riedel Vimun XL Grand Cru Bordeaux glass to get maximum enjoyment from the wine. The only thing that beats a perfect food and wine match is the same thing, but serving the wine in a Riedel glass! I discuss the benefits of using proper glassware and taste in my upcoming wine book at some length. For a synopsis on why proper glassware is important, review my previous post on Riedel glassware.
This meal and wine will be special. I am sorry we could no longer save our last bottle for dear friends, but we have more than enough ‘last’ bottles to share with them – more than we can find time to drink them all. So it was with some regret, but more excitement that we opened our last bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to match our wonderful beef dinner this evening.
Now that Daz in the Kitchen has rebuilt her computer and is catching up from helping me with a number of technical and publishing issues, she should be able to get a post with the recipe out soon. In fact, she just wrote the post with the recipe, and I am sharing with you here.
While you are unlikely to find a bottle of the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus to go with this meal, any good Bordeaux blend or a blend such as the Rosemount Traditional should work just fine. Just make sure it is a Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blend and optionally either Malbec or Cabernet Franc. A Shiraz blend or a GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mouvedre) is likely to be too heavy.
I would, of course! And by the way, that’s 104 Fahrenheit for my adoring (and adored) American followers!
Over time, we have brought more bottles of decent wine to our place in the Hunter Valley. However, I wanted to be careful as I did not have proper wine storage and the temperature can vary greatly from several degrees below zero (Celsius) to 40 or so degrees based on the time of season, so I did not bring too many great wines that I knew I would have to lay down until a future trip. This type of variation is not good for wine storage, especially when a cork is involved. Yet, I always like to have some nice bottles around to go with dinner or to bring to a friends.
And that is how the 2000 Lindeman’s Pyrus found its way to our place in the Hunter Valley. We now have a small Vintec which allows me to store with confidence about 30 bottles of good red and a few Montrachet. I also have about 30 or so other bottles of medium quality whites and reds that I store in a cabinet or under the bed. It was in reorganizing the other day that I found the 2000 Lindeman’s Pyrus which had been around for a while, but I missed transferring to the Vintec. I wanted to make sure to drink it right away and today seemed like a good time for it.
First of all, we are BBQ’ing this evening some pork ribs, corn on the cob, asparagus wrapped in prosciutto, and some small tofu steaks. I thought a very nice red wine would go with that. Secondly, I am writing a few wine blog posts today and could not consider writing about wine without having a nice glass at my side to help me out! After all, I am inside and the we are running the Air Conditioner. But that being the case, the room temperature is still a few degrees higher than I would like for the wine, so I have made a rare exception and put two reusable ice cubes into the Pyrus to cool it down a few degrees.
This is a extremely nice, but not a truly great wine (at least not yet!). It is very smooth and balanced. It tastes like a classic second or even possibly first growth Bordeaux, except that it lacks the complexity and robust flavors of a great Bordeaux. But then, I have recently been drinking and raving about the 1987 Lindeman’s Pyrus and the 1992 Lindeman’s Pyrus, so it may be an unfair comparison to call the 2000 Pyrus lacking in complexity! I expect with another 5 – 10 years in the bottle that the secondary characteristic of the maturing Cabernet Franc grape will add some real structure and an enhanced flavoring to the wine. Unfortunately, this is my only bottle, so I will not be able to witness that unless someone shares a bottle with me in the next decade.
The wine is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The 1987 Lindeman’s Pyrus and the 1992 Lindemans’s Pyrus also contained Malbec in the blend which would have added to the nuances of these great old red wines. The 2000 Lindemans’ Pyrus has a dark chocolate nose to it and tastes of plums, cherries and blackberry. It is subtle and beautifully nuanced and should be a great match for dinner tonight.
I have been primarily a fan of the the other two members of the Lindeman’s Trio – the St George (Cabernet Sauvignon) and the Limestone Ridge (blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz), but am really growing more fond of the Lindeman’s Pyrus, especially the older ones where the Cabernet Franc grape has had a chance to evolve and provide some real elegance to this great blend.
This wine is so easy to drink! The Cabernet Sauvignon grape is prominent and so smooth. My only problem with this wine is that I seem to only have about one-third of the bottle left for dinner! Oh well, better get onto that!
It was quite a birthday weekend overall, with guests flying in from the US and Melbourne to join those of us already based in Sydney. We started with a Friday evening pre-birthday dinner celebration at Fish at the Rocks (with our out-of-town visitors) with some great wines, including:
1992 Waverley Estate Semillon;
2007 La Belle Voisine Chassange Montrachet;
1996 Lindemans St George; and
2005 Chateau Haut Beregon Sauternes
This on its own was a great line-up! Then on Saturday, I tasted three wines while being a guest on Food in Focus with Natascha Moy. By the time I returned from the show, I had a bit of a buzz having consumed almost 750 ml by myself (one needs to make sure they are voicing the right opinions when one is serving the public like I was that day)!
By the time I arrived home, Jay Huxley, Masterchef, had arrived and was preparing dinner, and what a dinner it turned out to be. A number of our guests (including most who had attended Deanna’s 40th birthday several years ago) thought it was the finest meal they had ever had! They felt that the wine drinking for Deanna’s 40th was the best wine drinking experience they ever had and it came with a great meal, but my 60th was the reverse – the best meal they ever had with a great line-up of wine.
It was my intent to make my 60th birthday the second best wine tasting meal I ever had, but I admittedly fell short. There were two main reasons for this. The first that being my 60th birthday, it was really tough to get birth year wines (1952) that were truly outstanding compared to Deanna’s 40th which had a birth year of 1971 when we had:
1971 Lindemans Limestone Ridge;
1971 Penfolds Grange; and
1971 Chateau D’Yquem
each bottle easily being in the Top 10 bottles I have ever drank! But the most important reason was that Jay had developed such an awesome menu that it was actually difficult to match the very best wines with the food! For Deanna’s 40th birthday dinner, I presented the nine wines I wanted to drink to the chef and he did a magnificent job matching the food to the wine. But for my 60th birthday, I let Jay have total freedom and while he created a killer food line-up, it was difficult to match great wines to every course.
I had been working for a couple of months to pick a line-up of great wines for my 60th birthday, including thinking it was time to have our last bottle of the 1981 Penfolds Grange, and do that just after the 1991 Grant Burge Mesach (given to me for my 59th birthday BTW!) and the 1992 Henschke Hill of Grace. My original line-up of wines for my 60th, included:
1998 Pommeray Louis Champange
1990 Waverley Estate Semillon
2001 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling
2007 La Belle Voisine Chassagne Montrachet
2005 Chateau Brane-Cantenac
1991 Grant Burge Mesach
1992 Henschke Hill of Grace
1981 Penfolds Grange
1997 Chateau D’Yquem
1967 Lindemans Vintage Port
However, once I saw Jay’s menu, I knew I needed to back off the big reds (especially the Shiraz) and I also ‘downgraded’ some of my choices, including moving from the 1990 Waverley Estates Semillon to the 1992 Waverley Estate Semillon (which we had the night before at Fish at the Rocks), and I also decided to drink the 1980 Lindemans Vintage Port instead of the 1967. I only have two bottles of the 1990 Waverley Estate Semillon left and I needed a good bottle and a back-up bottle to share with my wife’s boss who I greatly admire and who is a Semillon fanatic, and I wanted to sip the 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port over several months instead of ‘gulping’ it down at the end of a boozy meal, which I have mistakenly done with some iconic Ports previously.
But the key thing about Jay’s menu is that it demanded more whites than reds and the reds had to be more refined than the big Shiraz’ that I had nominated for the evening. Therefore, I eliminated the:
2005 Chateau Brane-Cantenac
1991 Grant Burge Mesach
1992 Henschke Hill of Grace
1981 Penfolds Grange
I also decided upon seeing the desserts and having some guests who would never have the experience again to go with the 1975 Lindemans Porphry instead of the 1997 Chateau D’Yquem. I only ended up using two wines from my original list being the 1998 Pommeray Louise Champange and the 2008 Grosset Polish Hill.
So what was the menu and matching wines for the evening? It was as follows:
Upon arrival – Bollinger NV Champagne
Tian of Alaskan King Crab, black caviar and radish – 1998 Pommeray Louise Champagne
Sousvide Pork Fillet, red cabbage, cauliflower puree and lentil pear salad – 2008 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling and 2007 La Belle Voisine Nuits St George (Pinot Noir)
Tomato heart and gin shooter, in tomato tea and basil oil – finishing off the 1998 Pommeray Louise Champange and 2008 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling
Smoked eel, jamon croquette with beetroot and apple – Rose Vin de Pays du Vaucluse
Vichy Asparagus with citrus and olive crumb and sousvide duck egg yolk – 2009 Bouchard Perrin & Fils Puligny Montrachet
Charcoal octupus in romesco sauce and verde oil – 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
Confit duck in mushroom sauce, abalone and star anise consume – (we continued to drink whatever wines we had going at the time!)
Canon of saltbush lamb in minted pea soup and taro – 2000 Moss Wood Cabernet Sauvignon
Death by Chocolate – 1980 Lindemans Vintage Port and Bailey’s NV Rutherglen Muscat
As you can imagine, we were quite satiated by the end of the evening!
This post has become quite a bit longer than I had expected, so I will leave my review of the food and wine matching and descriptions to the next post. I just wanted to let you know that this was a very special meal – the best meal I have ever eaten thanks to Jay Huxley and his team, and among one of the best wine drinking experiences I have ever had. Not every meal is like this though. Tonight I am having a Chinese pork bun and drinking a 1997 Rosemount Show Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. But it is still great as I am sharing the evening with my loved one over good food and good wine. What could be better?
I love making a good pizza and drinking a great wine to go with it. My lovely bride asks me if we aren’t over-doing the wine we sometimes have with pizza and I tell her simply, “no!” We often drink a Chianti or a Cabernet Sauvignon with pizza. And tonight, the Cabernet Sauvignon was the 1996 Lindeman’s St George, one of my all-time favorites!
I remember tasting a bottle of this in 2000 and then securing four dozen bottles. This was one of my all-time great buys and the wine has improved and served me well over its lifetime. I was running down to my last few bottles several years ago and topped off my holdings by buying four more and six of the 1998 St George (an even slightly better vintage). We also have a couple dozen of the 1997 St George which is a great wine, if not quite as complex as the 1996 or 1998.
This wine has large berry flavors, most closely to raspberry or sweet (over-ripe) blackberry. It is beautifully balanced. However, this wine is starting to show its age and should be drank in the next year or two. I think I have about three or four bottles left, so this should not be a problem. The fruit is not as lively as it was three or four years ago.
I have always liked the St George Cabernet Sauvignon as one of my go-to Cab Savs. An even better one (but with more variability vintage to vintage) is the Wynn’s John Riddoch. The Wynn’s John Riddoch also tends to cost about 50% more per bottle, but for great vintages, can be worth it. But my love affair with the Lindeman’s St George has served me well year-to-year and I have bought so much volume that I am always able to get quite good prices for it. In totality, I have had the 1989, 1991, 1992, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 (only available as a clean skin), 2004, 2005, 2008, and 2009 vintages.
Is this too good a wine to drink with pizza? I don’t think so. “Yes,” I could have a decent and much cheaper Chianto to go with pizza, or a cheaper Cab Sav, but why should I when I have a bottle of the 1996 St George staring me in the face when I open the Vintec? If it needs to be drunk in the next several years, there is no time like the present! And I can guarantee that it makes a great pizza even better!
“Just open it and drink it,” many of you would say. But a 20 year old iconic red wine certainly deserves more care and ceremony than that! A number of seemingly small steps can make the difference between the wine being ‘passable’ and exceptional. And it only takes a few more minutes to make it exceptional, so you would be foolhardy if you did not give it a chance!
Granted, the wine will be good or ‘not good’ mostly based on how it has been stored for the last 20 years and what has happened with the micro-oxidation that has gone on in the bottle during that time. This will be heavily influenced by the cork quality and if it has been faithful or not.
While you are no longer in control of the previous storage or the cork quality, there are four things you have control over in preparing the wine for drinking, all which may influence if the wine is suitable or not:
Removing wine from cellar / storage, stand up-right and let rise to room temperature
Choosing to use an Ah So cork remover as the cork will be fragile (any cork after 12 – 15 years tends to become saturated and soggy (unless the cork grain is very tight) and is at risk of breaking apart. See picture in my post ‘A disappointment, but one moves on!’) of a crumbled cork from a 17 year old bottle of wine.)
Decanting the wine, avoiding the use of a filter or aerator if possible. If required, use a filter, but never an aerator for a 20 year old wine
Let decant for only 30 – 60 minutes. Then re-bottle if not already consumed, and consuming the wine within several hours
You should remove the wine 3 – 12 hours before you plan on opening it. By allowing it to come to room temperature slowly before opening the bottle will put less stress on the wine as you decant it. And standing it up allows any free sediment to settle to the bottom of the bottle, potentially removing the need to filter the wine while decanting.
Perfectly preserved cord after 20 years!
The Ah So cork remover is far better for delicate corks than more traditional cork screws as it provides a grip on the outside of the cork (instead of drilling down through a soft cork center) and also ensures the cork has been ‘twisted’ to separate the cork from the bottle. Over time, the sugar in wine can crystallize, attaching the cork to the bottle and make it difficult to separate and remove.
Now if you have no sediment and no cork floating in the wine, you can decant slowly without using a filter or aerator. If you do have some indication of sediment or cork, then use a filter but not an aerator. The structure of an older wine becomes very fragile and will start to separate in a short period of time, further losing fruit flavor and its integrated texture, and an aerator worsen this effect noticeably. (While I am a big fan of aerating most wines, never aerate a ‘museum’ wine.
Let the wine decant for a short period of time, maybe 30 – 60 minutes. This old a wine does not usually require much more air to make it ready to drink. You usually just want to get any older smells entrapped in the bottle out and let the wine breath a little. If you are not going to drink the wine immediately, then re-bottle it, but make sure to consume within several hours. This old a bottle of wine will not last the day without some deterioration.
There are a few exceptions to this rule for very robust, built to last wines, but this is the general rule. You can test a sip or two every 15 minutes to see if the wine continues to improve or not and once it shows no further sign of improvement, then re-bottle. Some wines such as an older Penfold Grange and the 1987 Lindeman Pyrus require a long time to decant to reach maximum potential.
I used the above process to open a bottle of the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus. This is a beautifully-aged wine made of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc. This type of blend has great potential to last a long time and beautifully mature in terms of the complexity and integration of flavors. Thanks to the cork being in perfect condition, the wine is exquisite! It would have been slightly better 3 – 5 years ago and has lost just a touch of its fruit flavors, but still very flavorful. It has big plum flavors with a trace of tobacco which I really enjoy in an aged red wine.
The structure of the wine has held up well, but is fragile and will not last long. Therefore, I need to drink this wine today. I am craving a pizza to go with it, or some nice lamb, but we planned to have leftover black bean soup, some corn-on-the-cob, and a salad for dinner. But it seems almost sinful to have this great wine with a spicy black bean soup!
Cheese/meat plate with 1992 Lindemans Pyrus and Rockmellon
Therefore, we decided to make a last moment change (as the soup, salad and corn-on-the-cob will last until tomorrow) and made up a cheese and salami / prosciutto plate instead which will suffice for dinner and be more enjoyable with the wine than black bean soup!
I am now 2/3rds the way through the bottle (and finished with this post!), so you do not need to be concerned if I finish the wine today or not!
[Post-writing update: I stand corrected. I saved the other 1/3 rd of the bottle for a day later, and it was still surprisingly good. If a wine is very well crafted such as the 1992 Lindemans Pyrus was, then there is less of a concern about it deteriorating quickly. This wine is still a star the day after opening!]
I have had some great wines in my lifetime. Most have been memorable of their own accord. But the memories that last forever are when you have a line-up of great friends, great food and great wine, all which match perfectly. The memories of those times are enjoyed forever!
Over the next few weeks, I will be describing each meal, the event that warranted it, the friends involved and the wines, all which made the evening special. But the ranking to make my Top Five all-time wine drinking meals is judged on the wine itself and the wine line-up being truly great. While the friends and food added to the evening, they did not contribute to how that evening ranked – only the wine counted!
In this post, I will provide the event, and the list of wines. In subsequent posts, I will describe the friends and food that matched the wine that made those evenings special. My Top Five evenings (in reverse order) are the following:
#5 evening – My 59th birthday – November 26, 2011, at The Cut Bar & Grill
2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon
2000 Waverley Estate Chardonnay
2000 Houghton Museum Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon
2000 McWilliams Mt Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
1975 Lindemans Porphry
#4 evening – BPAY Architecture and Support team reunion – August 29, 2012, at The Cut Bar & Grill
While we have had some evenings (such as our anniversaries) where the wines have been just as spectacular, they were limited to two bottles. What made the Top Five truly stand out was that we had more friends and more wines to sample, enjoy and compare.
I am actually not sure if I can write about the great time we had for Deanna’s 40th birthday without passing out as just writing up the list has me quivering! I am uncertain if we will ever be able to top that evening, but my 60th birthday is coming up in a few months, so we do have a reason to try! Hopefully, I can use that night to knock off the current #5 and possibly reposition a few of the other four spots!
Who’s the lucky bastard who bought ALL my 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge?!?
I just opened a bottle and it is brilliant! I remember the tasting and the great deal I got on this wine. We had a magnificent afternoon several years ago in the Lindemans Still House. Things were different at Lindemans then. Aaron was serving us that day and he is driving a truck now. Damien the heart and soul of Lindemans for a dozen years was pushed out by the ‘suits working the numbers’ from Treasury Wine Estates. (I could go on and on about how this will cost TWE hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars but will save that for another post!)
We were sampling and bought some great, great 2005 Lindemans St George and Limestone Ridge that day. However, I have greatly over-bought wine since returning from Qatar, and once I inventoried it, I was shocked to find out how much wine I had and how much I spent. I had close to 3,800 bottles of wine! Frankly, looking back I am astounded at my stupidity in terms of continuing to collect so much wine. Each purchase on its own was a good deal, but I bought too much at a time and too much to drink over time. My pleasure had become my burden!
Therefore, I felt I needed to sell off a lot and get it back down to a ‘much more reasonable’ inventory of about 1,500 – 2,000 bottles. I have sold off about 1,000 bottles so far, but still have about 1,000 more to go. Since I had so much I wanted to clear, I priced it at a good price point and I decided not to reserve any bottles as ‘not available.’ I felt that I had so much great wine, that it was unlikely someone would buy all of one brand and vintage and even if they did, I had other comparable wines I could still really enjoy. For example, if someone bought all of my 2004 Penfolds Bin 389 (a superb wine), then I still had my 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge. But damn it! Now I have neither! And seriously, I did not expect my 12 bottles of various vintages of Penfolds Grange from 1981 – 1996 to all sell since they were so expensive. Boy, was I wrong and do I regret it now!. I only have one bottle of the 1981 Grange left (which I have set in reserve for my later drinking pleasure) and one bottle of the 1996 Grange (a most magnificent year!) which is still for sale as it needs a number of years yet to mature, so I am not putting in my ‘reserve.’
I no longer have any of the 2000 Houghton Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon which is one of the best Cab Savs of all time. And I sold off my 2005 Limestone Ridge which I did not realize I would miss so much until I found an odd bottle in the apartment Vintec wine fridge and opened this evening. Damn, is it good! And I paid such a good price for it. I feel like I have lost some close personal friends never to be spending time with them again, including the:
Therefore, I have now set aside a ‘reserve’ of about 100 bottles that I must have moving forward and are not for sale. I have lost many good friends (bottles of wine!) through the process, but in most cases also feel good that while my wines have been ‘cherry-picked,’ they often have gone to friends with good palates. However, I have parted with some outstanding wines which I have had in the cellar for up to ten years and cared for and looked forward to drinking in the future. My wife cried when I told here about selling off all of her favorite 1999 Lindeman Stevens Shiraz, but I was fortunate to find one lone bottle in the Vintec and one more at our place in the Hunter Valley which we can enjoy as special treats in the months ahead.
But drinking my last bottle of the 2005 Lindemans Limestone Ridge tonight makes me ask me once again the question, “Who is that lucky bastard that bought ALL of my 2005 Limestone Ridge?”
The other evening my brother-in-law and his family were staying with us and we decided to drink some Port wine after dinner. I started with my regular drinking Port which is currently the 2004 Dow Vintage Port. I have one bottle of the 1977 Dow Vintage Port (for a special occasion and to drink with great pleasure over a short period of time in the not too distant future). I also have two bottles of the 2007 Dow Vintage Port which is one of the highest rated vintages ever, but those two bottles will be lying in the cellar for another 20 years or so before I touch them. The 2004 Dow Vintage Port is a very nice wine. This wine matured early and is easily drinkable now. It is fruity and has softened, especially when the bottle has been open for a while. This wine is very inexpensive ($12 – $15 per bottle in the US and about $25 – $30 per bottle in Australia) and provides for a great-valued drink. A truly wonderful drink for the money, but should be drunk over the next few years.
We then tried a bottle of Penfolds Grandfather Tawny Port. This is a non-vintaged Port blended across eight years with the vintages all being 20 years old or so. This wine was very, very smooth and had a completely different mouthfeel to the 2004 Dow Vintage Port. The Penfolds Granfather Tawny Port had a luscious, smooth feeling with caramelized, nutty sugars. The wine reminded me of the recent Christmas fruit cakes with brandy I had eaten – thick, juicy and sweet. A completely different style of Port from the 2004 Dow Vintage Port.
We then opened a bottle of the 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port. This ismy last bottle and while not quite as good as the 1954 and the 1957 Lindemans Vintage Ports I have had, it is a magnificent wine. I had some problems getting the cork out being soggy after 35 years in the bottle! Even the Ah So corkscrew was not able to help and ultimately, I ended up with the cork in the bottle. Yet, I was able to pour us a glass and we had just experienced our third very different Port that evening! The 1967 Lindemans Vintage Port was very big with plummy fruit flavors, luscious to the feel on the tongue beautiful, but slightly medicinal smells.
