Tag Archives: Shiraz

Mother Nature makes a real mess of 2013 Hunter Valley vintage

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I had recently published a post where I stated the 2013 Hunter Valley vintage would be among the best of all time.  The content for that post was written in early January, 2013.  However, just before harvesting the bulk of grapes for the 2013 vintage, Mother Nature has deluged the Hunter Valley vineyards persistently and forcibly over the last six weeks.  This has turned the 2013 Hunter vintage from superior to below average on the whims of Mother Nature, God, or some force of bad karma.

The tonnage will be far less than expected and the quality of the grapes far less also.  Many grapes were picked too early, too late, or worst of all – not at all.

I spent a lot of time in the Hunter Valley this vintage and saw the growth of the vines and grapes through almost perfect weather conditions.  My excitement and anticipation of both a large and high quality haul of grapes was unprecedented.  After buying a lot of the 2007 Shiraz vintage and some of the 2009 Shiraz vintage, I was excited that 2013 would be a better vintage than either the 2007 or 2009.

But damn if Mother Nature did not wreak its havoc!  Six straight weeks of tumultuous rain had crippled, if not destroyed the harvest.  The cooperative vineyard where we have a place just released their vintage notes with less than satisfactory results.  I have been following the harvesting schedules of  many of the Hunter wineries and they have had to pick early, late or not pick at all.

There will of course be selected pockets of success and the big growers such as Tyrrell’s will have picked as optimally as anyone possibly could have.  But overall, the rain in such a short period of time has turned a once in a decade vintage to an inferior one.  I really feel for the growers and the wine makers.  They may be making 25% – 40% (purely a speculated guess on my behalf!) what they could have had the rain held off.  Why, oh why, is Mother Nature so cruel to wine makers?  And why tempt us all with the promise of such a great vintage to have it mostly destroyed through rain and more rain?

I am heart broken for the Hunter wineries, yet some of them will still do all right.  Bruce Tyrrell will of course still claim it is the vintage of the century as he does most years!  (And having followed in detail the harvesting by Tyrrell’s, they seemed to have done as well as they could!)  But many of the smaller wineries would be suffering and wondering why they are in the game at all.  It is one thing to have dry conditions and add a little in irrigation when necessary.  But when you have torrential rains, there is nothing you can do, especially so late in the season.

But so is the cycle of life. And next year is another year.  And many will fail and many will prosper in 2014.  But I was looking to 2013 as the year that many of the coffers of the Hunter Valley wineries would be lined to provide a buffer for future years and that will not happen now due to the cruelty of Mother Nature.

I hope to hear good news from some of the vineyards as to their success in picking grapes at the right time, but am not hopeful that the Hunter Valley overall will have a great vintage when only two months ago, it look like it would be one of the best of all time.

A roll of the dice against the Gods and once more the Gods made their lesson known.  So is the unpredictability and excitement of being a wine grower or wine maker.  Not for the faint of heart!

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014.  Steve Shipley
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Do you suffer from palate fatigue?

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Is is possible to have ruined your palate and not be able to discern the taste and quality of the wines you are tasting?  The answer is a resounding, “Yes.”

Several years ago, we spent ten straight days at The Hunter Valley and we tasted a lot of wine.  I was quite enamored by the 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz’ (and I still am) and we tasted a lot of them, in addition to expanding our search for some more aged Semillons and some good Australian Verdelhos.  We were relentless in our pursuit.

However, by Day 7 onwards, I really was not liking much of what I was drinking, and thought some of the wines were down-right tainted.  The combination of sampling wines every morning and afternoon and having wine with all dinners and most lunches, I had simply overloaded and ruined my palate!  We may have sampled over 300 wines during that trip!

It was only two to four months later that when trying some of the same wines, that I realized how great a few of them I thought tainted were.  In particular, I had passed over the 2006 Seppelts St Peters Shiraz (not all wines we were tasting were Hunter Valley Shiraz BTW!) as not being suitable, but when I tasted it again several months later, I realized how spectacular a wine this is.  I could not believe this and several other wines I had rated as insufferable only a few months earlier.

Not that I need to worry about this, but people who exercise regularly find they still need to take at least a day off every week to allow their muscles to recover and build.  And the same is true with wine tasting.  During our ten day trip to the Hunter, I had accumulated so much tannin on the inside of my cheeks and had saturated my palate so thoroughly that I could not discern readily one taste from another.  My palate had been ruined from excessive tasting.  Fortunately, it came right once again.

I drink a glass or two of wine almost daily.  I love drinking wine for several reasons, including that I love the taste, I love the experience of drinking a good glass of wine with a good meal and sharing a glass with friends, and I also find it lifts my spirits and attitude and helps me think, write and do other mental and emotional activities better.  But if I do not take a break of a day or two every now and then, I get to the point where I notice my palate is not working at 100%.  And this will diminish your wine tasting experience.

This is a rare situation where I am writing this blog without having a glass of wine to inspire me!  And I am planning to be wine-free for a couple more days.  By doing this over the last few weeks, I have noticed my palate is functioning better and I have been able to discern far better the characteristics and quality of the wines I have been drinking.  Last night, I attended a members dinner for one of the wineries in The Hunter Valley.  They had 55 wines to sample, but I only tried about a dozen.  By not having any wine the day before and by limiting my selection, I was able to better taste and appreciate the differences and quality of each of the wines I sampled, and was far more confident in my selections (I actually did not buy any, but was confident in my assessment in passing in on them.)

Wine judges have the (enviable!) task of having to judge many wines in a given session.  However, even with spitting out all the wine, they still can suffer palate fatigue which is why they don’t judge more than a maximum of 60 – 80 wines for session.  And they keep their palates in shape and prepare for each judging by ensuring their palate is in optimal shape.  (They also make sure no mint toothpaste, lipstick or other impediments curtail their ability to taste.)

I have found my wine drinking experiences have benefited from following a few rules:

  • Take off a day or two per week from drinking any wine or other alcohol to rest and detox your palate
  • Every month or two, take a break of at least three to five days without drinking anything (or limit it to a glass during that time if you feel the need to imbibe)
  • If you are going to enjoy a great bottle or two of wine, make sure to not drink for a day or two beforehand, so your palate is in optimal shape to enjoy that truly great bottle
  • If you are going to taste or drink four to five glasses or more in any day, mix it up by having some whites and some reds and of different grapes, and follow that with a day of not drinking

I never get drunk while drinking wine.  I drink wine in a controlled manner for the taste and enjoyment and to be able to share the experience with others.  Yet, I still control my approach to wine drinking to get the most out of the experience.  If you are suffering from palate fatigue, give it a rest for a day or two!

 

Steve Shipley, author Wine Sense, out early 2014. Published by InkIT Publishing
© 2014.  Steve Shipley
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2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz, featuring the Wyndham Estate Black Cluster Shiraz

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2013 looks to be a spectacular year for Hunter Valley wine.  We have been visiting the region frequently during the growing season and the climate and precipitation have been close to perfect.  Last year was almost a total loss with far too much rain making the grapes moldy or bursting them before picking, causing most grapes to be lost.  And the ones that were saved were likely picked too early and lacked the full fruit flavor that most vintages should have.

Having returned from Qatar in middle of 2009, we were able to taste a number of the 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz’ as the premium brands were just being bottled and released.  I fell in love with the 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz vintage and purchased at least a dozen of about 14 different brands (and four more different brands of the 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz vintage where I have a least a couple of bottles), so I would be able to enjoy and compare them for many years to come.  I thought it would be a fascinating journey to see how each wine developed over the next decade when compared against its peers.  With that in mind, and when tasting the 2007 vintage, I tried to think about how this wine would taste in ten years time.  While some wines were already mellow and very drinkable right away, I was looking for and trying to appreciate which ones were too tight currently, but had the big fruit and complexity to mature into a beautiful wine over the next 5 – 10 years.

I set all of them down in the cellar until 2010, but then would drink an occasional bottle.  Among my favorites were the 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea, and the 2007 De Iuliis Reserve.  However, there are many excellent brands from the Hunter Valley in 2007, each outstanding in their own right.  The difference in quality between most of the wines listed below would not be more than several points out of 100.

The wines are now six years old and starting to drink extremely well.  Whenever I need a very good Shiraz and do not want to dip into my last bottles of pre-millenium Grange, St Henri, or Vat 9, I will now retrieve a bottle of a 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz.  I have a lot of them including:

  • McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea
  • De Iuliis Reserve
  • Tyrrell’s Vat 9
  • Tyrrell’s Stevens
  • Tulloch Hector
  • Glandore Hamish
  • Brokenwood Graveyard
  • Thomas Kiss
  • Thomas DJV
  • Meerea Park Alexander Munro
  • Meerea Park Hell Hole
  • Meerea Park Terracotta
  • Audrey Wilkinson Museum Reserve
  • Pokolbin Estate Reserve
  • Pooles Rock HV
  • Rothvale
  • Saddler’s Creek Best Barrique (blend of Hunter Valley and Langhorne Creek grapes)
  • Wyndham Estate Black Cluster

All of these wines are excellent wines, and will last at least another decade, but being six years in bottle already, they are a true delight to start drinking now, so that is what I plan to do.  (Some, however, like the 2007 Meerea Park Alexander Munro are so big though that they need at least another three years before even attempting them.)

Today, I am having a bottle of the 2007 Wyndham Estate Black Cluster.  This is their premier Shiraz and is an excellent wine.  I first had this wine when attending a wine and chocolate matching course at Wyndham Estates last year.  We had a chili flavor induced dark chocolate and this wine was an excellent match, being powerful and confident enough to stand up to chili chocolate!

Drinking it on its own now, you can tell this is a bold wine with many more years left to help it mature.  I may not drink my next bottle for another 5 – 10 years.  It has bold, powerful fruit flavors, strongly tasting of plum, cherry and blackberry with some spice.  It does not possess as strong a pepper taste as some Hunter Valley Shiraz, but you can still tell it is from the Hunter Valley  It also has full tannins, yet a smooth, elegant texture to match the great taste.  This wine has deservedly won four Gold Medals.

When drinking the 2007 Wyndham Estate Black Cluster, and recently having sampled the 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea and the 2007 De Iuliis Reserve, I have been surprised to find out how similar these wines are.  These are definitely Hunter Valley Shiraz as compared to Victorian or Barossa Valley Shiraz.  These wines have slight nuances and their own unique characteristics, but they are more similar than different.  It would be very difficult to pick these wines out in a blind tasting.

What excites me about the similarity is that the wine makers let the quality of the grape from the 2007 vintage rule the day.  They did not get in the way and try to manufacture a unique outcome for their wine.  They let the natural flavor of the grape grown with Hunter Valley terroir do the job for them with this resulting in an  excellent batch of wines.

I bought so much 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz and a little 2009 Hunter Valley Shiraz.  2008 and 2012 were bust vintages.  2010 was ‘fine’ and 2011 was also considered quite exceptional, but I did not buy any of those vintages as I have so much of the 2007, but am starting to work through them more rapidly now.  As great as the 2013 Hunter Valley vintage looks, I may pick up some of those also to compare to the 2007 and also just because some of the best winemakers such as Michael De Iuliis, PJ Charteris, and Andrew Thomas are also working with some new sources of grapes (for example Michael now has access to the Stevens Vineyard, one of the best Shiraz vineyards in the Hunter Valley) and I am excited to find out what these wine makers can do with the very best grapes around!

Riedel Vinum Shiraz glassware

If you are looking for a good Shiraz and find a bottle of 2007 Hunter Valley Shiraz, you can feel pretty confident that you will be picking up a very good to excellent bottle, no matter how much you pay for it.  These wines deserve to be served in the Riedel Vinum Shiraz glassware also.  They are so big and powerful, that frankly no other glass in my opinion will do.

Seriously, who would drink a 2000 Lindeman’s Pyrus when its 40 Celsius outside?

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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!

Falling in love with secondary red grapes

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Most of my life, I have been primarily a Shiraz grape drinker, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon and Pinot Noir when it comes to red wine.  I rarely drink Merlot, and only as a comparison test or in a blend with other red grapes.

But recently, I have been falling in love with the secondary red wine grapes Grenache, Malbec and Tempranillo.  I also enjoy the occasional Zinfindal and Sangiovese.  Just what is it about Grenach, Malbec and Tempranillo I am finding attractive?  First, off, like a hearty Shiraz, they can have a chewy texture which lingers on the palate and usually provides a long finish.  Secondly, these grapes tend to be a bit sweeter and fruiter than the primary red wine grapes.

Additionally, they easily match a wide variety of food.  These wines work well with red sauce pastas, meats, nachos, pizzas, meat loaf, Sheperd’s Pie, and a number of other dishes.  With Cabernet Sauvignon, in particular, and a number of Shiraz, you need to be a little more careful in matching the wine to the specific sauces and seasoning you are using with your red meats.  Therefore, if I want to do something ‘easy’ in terms of a great meal and matching wine, I can whip up some nachos or pizza and just pull out a bottle made from one of these secondary red grapes and I have a heck of a good meal!

If you want to try a great bottle of each and not spend a lot of money doing so, there are a few great-valued and high quality Australian wines you can try.  My suggestions would include the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenach, which is absolutely magnificent!  If you want to spend more, there are a variety of wines from the region of Châteauneuf-du-Pape you can try.

And the 2009 Audrey Wilkinson Malbec is a great buy for the money when it comes to Australian Malbec.  Of course, if you want to try the very best, research and purchase some Malbec from Argentina.  And one of the two best-valued Australian Tempranillo I have had is the 2011 Running with the Bulls.  This is a very good-valued Tempranillo, and the 2011 vintage is even better than the outstanding 2010 or 2009 vintages.  This is because the grapes have been sourced from Wrattonbully instead of the Barossa Valley.  Another great Australian Tempranillo from the Hunter Valley is the Glandore TPR Tempranillo.  And if you want to try some other great Tempranillo, then research and purchase some from Spain.

These secondary red wine grapes are well textured, bursting in taste and match well with a variety of pedestrian food dishes, so make sure to try some and get some in your cellar!  You are then prepared when you need to put together a simple meal with wine that ‘needs to impress!’

Grenache was made for Sheperd’s Pie!

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A number of red wines work with Sheperd’s Pie.  I have tried a few as my wife, DAZ in the Kitchen, makes a great Sheperd’s Pie!  I have had Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz with Sheperd’s Pie, and both worked fine.  More recently, I had the 2008 Glandore TPR Tempranillo with Sheperd’s Pie and thought it worked better than either a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz. Tempranillo is a secondary and less popular red wine grape, but a beautiful drink.

Grenache is another secondary wine grape growing in popularity.  I have been slow to coming to truly like Grenache as a grape, but really enjoying it more recently.  I have been tasting more decent wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and have been able to discern the more pleasurable characteristics of Grenache.  We also recently have a tremendous Australian Grenach (the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache) which was wonderful with Korean BBQ.

The characteristics I love about Grenache (and Tempranillo) is that they make hearty, chewable wines that are still elegant and well-refined.  It almost seems to be a contradiction in terms, and that is why some of the cheaper, younger Grenache wines don’t work.  The compexities and balance are not there yet.

I had a single bottle of the 2006 Perrin & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Sinards and remembering how good the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache was from a few days before, I thought a Grenache would go very well with Sheperd’s Pie that evening.  It ended up being a perfect match!

The 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache was 100% Grenache.  But often the Grenache grape is blended with smaller quantities of other grapes.  The 2006 Perrin & Fils Châteauneuf-du-Pape Les Sinards is such a blend being 70% Grenache, 15% Shiraz, and 15% Mourvedre.  This blending is typical of a wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape and why there can be such a wide variety of different tasting wines from that region.

Grenache (or a Grenache blend) works well with Sheperd’s Pie because both the texture of the wine and the taste compliment the food beautifully.  This wine is ‘meaty’ on its own and mixes with the juice from the pie in a splendid sensation of flavours.  Additionally, the leaner, elegant characteristics compliment the mash potato used in the pie.

I have not tried a Pinot Noir with Sheperd’s Pie and you may be asking why as it contains lamb mince.  I think most Pinot Noirs would be too light in texture to work with the heartiness of Sheperd’s Pie.

If you have not tried Grenache before, you owe it to yourself to do so.  And if you are going to cook up Sheperd’s Pie, then you definitely should be looking for a bottle of Grenache to go with it (or a bottle of a Tempranillo).  For my palate, a Grenache is a far better match for Sheperd’s Pie than Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz.

Impressing or expressing? – a good night out with the guys!

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The five of us were all looking forward to a good night out.  One in the group was returning to the US after two years living in Sydney, others reflecting on completing one of the greatest banking IT projects ever run anywhere in the world, which we all touched in one way or another over the last few years, but mostly we just wanted to get together to share some companionship and some great wine.  And what a wine line-up we had!

Owen, David, Mark, Daniel, Steve

We had been planning the evening for about a month, but except for agreeing on the date, no one did any real planning at all!  So we decided to meet at the Small Bar in Crows Nest and take it from there.  Mark and I arrived first, drinking some 2012 David Hook Pinot Grigio from the Hunter Valley.  After a glass each and some nibblies, we got another full bottle as the other guys were arriving.

After some good banter, we all started showing off the wine we had brought along for the evening.  It was suppose to be a ‘big red’ night and it certainly turned out that way!  As I mentioned, we all apparently wanted to impress, but not in that manly competitive way of “You show me yours, and I’ll show you mine!”  It was more about being respectful of each being part of a friendship and wanting to share something special with each other.  The other four in the group had been especially tight over the previous few years and I had only circled in and out a few times, so it was great to be part of the group that evening.  We all knew and enjoyed our wines and made sure we each brought a very good bottle along!

I brought along a 1996 Waverley Estates Semillon to start us off with an iconic Australian white wine which I thought would go with whatever Asian food we decided to eat that evening.  Since the evening was about the friendship and the wine, we weren’t sure where we would eat (so we went to the closest place which was the Vietnamese restaurant Phuong immediately next door to the Small Bar!).  In fairness to my friend’s taste and Phuong, some of the guys had been there before and it was an outstanding choice.

I felt we should start with one bottle of white wine and I wanted to test and share what I knew would be a great Australian white in the 1996 Waverley Estates Semillon.  Once we got the food ordered (Banquet Menu B, showing again how much effort we would be putting into non-wine related topics!), we got into the red wines.  The line-up was a stunner:

  • 2008 Trinity Hill Homage Gimblett Gravels Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot blend (from Hawkes Bay, New Zealand)
  • 1997 Penfolds 389 Shiraz / Cabernet Sauvignon blend
  • 1994 Brokenwood Hermintage
  • 2002 Penfolds St Henri Shiraz
  • 2009 Tyrrell’s Johnno Shiraz
  • 2003 Penfolds St Henri Shiraz
  • 2007 McWilliams Mount Pleasant Maurice O’Shea Shiraz
  • 2002 Wolf Blass Black Label Shiraz / Cabernet Sauvignon / Malbec
  • Some bottle of Pinot Noir that Mark bought at the bottle shop because for some reason he did not think we had enough wine for five guys!

Except for the 2002 Wolf Blass Black Label which was gifted to Andrew (the guy returning to the US), the 2009 Tyrrell’s Johnno Shiraz (which we deemed too young to drink), and the bottle Pinot Noir that Mark bought, we did drink all the wine with dinner.  You can tell because of how careful we were with our plates and food (and this does not show the broken glass on the floor or the mess I made of Daniel’s shirt!).

Six of the reds we drank were Shiraz or Shiraz blends – that’s heavy lifting for one meal!  We opened with the Trinity Hill Cabernet Sauvignon / Merlot blend and finished with dessert and the Pinot Noir, but everything else in between was Shiraz!  I believe we all agreed that the wine of the evening was the 2002 Penfolds St Henri.  The 1997 Penfolds 389 was absolutely splendid and lasted better than I thought it would.  The 1994 Brokenwood Hermitage was a classic older Hunter Shiraz with great body and finish, but still maintaining  the elegant style of an old world Hermitage.  The 2009 Tyrrell’s Johnno Shiraz would have been a delight, but we passed on it as it will last another decade or more and improve with age.  And the 2003 Penfolds St Henri was another wonderful wine.  Each of these reds would usually be considered the featured wine to finish a meal with, but we had no problem over-indulging with all of them!

We then walked in the rain down to Bravo’s for some gelato and other desserts where we did finish off the bottle of Pinot Noir that Mark bought before finding our individual ways home.

Great friends, great food, great times and great wine all go together.  We were not trying to impress in a competitive way – just expressing gratitude for each others friendship and respect for each others palate!  It was a rare evening where everything worked – at least it seemed so with that much good wine!

The wines of my 60th birthday were fine indeed!

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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
  • Spiced poached pear crispy wonton, salted caramel and double cream – 1975 Lindemans Porphry
  • 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?

Seriously? A 1987 Lindemans Shiraz with pizza tonight?

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I have so many topics queued up to blog about.  I love talking about (and drinking) wine.  Today I was discussing a very interesting new wine education concept with a friend and he called me wine-centric.  I kind of liked that!  And it fit in well with the wine educational concept he is promoting.  The guy I was talking with is Ben Hughes, who has a lifetime of experience in the wine industry as a seller, maker and educator.  Deanna and I have taken a wine tasting class from him previously which was great fun and very educational.  Ben is now starting his new and improved venture The Australian Wine and Beer School (AWBS).  It looks like a great way to teach a wide variety of people on Australian wine and beer.  Most importantly, it takes the mystique and intimidation out of learning about wine and makes it downright fun!

Perfect Cork

Because Ben was coming over and because I knew he would appreciate it, I opened my last bottle of the 1987 Lindemans Shiraz which I happened to come across when checking out the temperature in my Vintec.  Plus I knew I needed to drink it soon as with each passing year, it was at risk of becoming more past due.

I had taken a bottle of this to the Hunter Valley last year, but had about five winter months when it was not stored in optimal conditions.  That was a mistake for a 25 year old (and) fragile wine.  I was excited to have that bottle one day at Bistro Molines, but upon opening and decanting it, I found it was not in great condition and had to pour it down the drain – a real shame!  But the bottle I opened today to drink with Ben was much better.  The cork was perfect (except it was dry on the top and did crumble when trying to open it), and the wine much better preserved and drinkable than the bottle I took to the Hunter and was stored outside of proper cellaring conditions.

Since the cork crumbled into the bottle, I had to filter it to ensure no cork fragments made their way into the wine.  However, I was careful not to aerate it as it would have further harmed an already fragile (but still pretty good) structure. Opening any wine this old requires special care as I discussed in a previous post.  This wine was not brownish (brownish being a sure sign of too much oxidation in the bottle) and clearly lasted better than the bottle I opened last year.  While not having lively fruit flavors, it was still a remarkable wine, perfectly integrated and balanced, and your typical Hunter Shiraz.

Sharing a ‘last bottle’ bestows a great honor for all involved.  As I get down to my remaining few bottles of a particular wine and vintage, I think carefully about who I want to drink that wine with.  And knowing Ben would appreciate it and with a lifetime in the wine industry, he would enjoy this bottle of wine.  That makes it a delight to share with others.  When you have that special bottle and that last bottle, put some thought into who you want to share it with.

And notice the Temperature gauge on the bottle!  This was a birthday present from a friend after reading that I do not use a temperature gauge when checking the temperature of bottles before serving.  More on this in a future post!

And since Ben was driving, we have some wine left over to go with the pizza I am making tonight.  And I am able to share that tonight with the most important person in my life, my wife and soul mate, Deanna, writer of DAZ in the Kitchen.  This will be the most notable wine we have ever had with pizza.  Usually a Chianti or Cabernet Sauvignon does the trick, but tonight it will be a 1987 Lindemans Shiraz!  The spicy, peppery flavors should match up well with the chili and garlic I load onto the pizza.  And if you want the recipe for the pizza, check out DAZ in the Kitchen blog post for our pizza recipe.

I hope the food and wine you have tonight will be as enjoyable as what we are doing!  Enjoy!

A great wine, but disappointing wine drinking experience

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We spent Saturday the week past, traveling and visiting friends in the Blue Mountains and beyond.  It was a great time and we had some great meals, even though it did make for a very long day.  For once, I did not bring the wines and let it up to the hosts to provide the wine to accompany the meals.

During our Saturday lunch, we had some great food starting with three different soups samplers (tomato and carrot, pumpkin, and pea), followed by stir fired veggies and prawns, with a wonderful dessert of chocolate balls and berry ice cream.  Each course had a decent wine to go with it from a white to red to sweet dessert wine.  And as usual the best part of the meal and experience was sharing it with great friends.

We repeated the performance for dinner, but it was a heavier meal with more meat, including a marinated roast beef side, sausages, and stir fired veggies.  Therefore, more red wines were served and the two choices of red were very nice choices.  Unfortunately, the first problem was that the wines were drunk too early in their life.

The wine of the evening should have been a very nice 2007 Penfold’s St Henri.  This is an excellent wine and has a 96 (out of 100) rating.  Usually I would salivate over having a St Henri with dinner, but then we are currently drinking the 1999 vintage (I have about 6 bottle left and need to drink them in the next few years to get maximum enjoyment from them).

But I could tell from the first smell and the first sip of the 2007 that this wine was not ready for drinking!  I asked the host how many bottles he had left and he mentioned he had six left.  I told him to wait at least two more years if not up to five years before he drinks the next one.

This wine should be drunk between 2015 and 2024 for peak enjoyment and ideally in the 2019 – 2021 time frame.  While he decanted and even aerated the wine, it did not have much of an effect as the wine structure was just too tight.  And then, the wine was served in a white wine glass used for Riesling or Semillon.  This did not allow the wine to breath and forced an already tight wine into a small area to breathe and drink from making it even tighter.  There are reasons Riedel makes specific wine glasses for Shiraz and other grapes and drinking a Shiraz from a white wine glass is almost sinful!

This was a great wine, served too early and without giving it any advantage to shine.  This was a $75 – $100 bottle of wine wasted.  It still had (obviously) fresh fruit, but was too tight and the complexities of this great wine had not become fully integrated.  I hope the host takes my advice and does not serve up another bottle for several more years.  This will be a great wine over time, but certainly not at its best today when served up in a small glass.