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!
What is Korean BBQ? It is a meal where you select some meats to cook on an in-table BBQ until cooked. Then you wrap the meats in a leaf of lettuce and add some chili sauce and roasted garlic slices to taste. The meats can be a variety of pork, beef rib, beef brisket, or tenderloin. You can also choose to cook some prawns or other types of seafood or vegetables such as mushrooms or eggplant. Additionally, you are usually provided some sides of kimchi, garlic potatoes, pickles, and other Korean delicacies which you probably do not want to know what they are!
Given that assortment, you may wonder how it is possible to match any wine with Korean BBQ!
I have tried a number of wines with Korean BBQ previously which were ok, but not a great match for the food. I have tried a Gewürztraminer, Semillon, and some spicy Shiraz’. But then I realized that the secret was not to match up the wine with the meat, but rather to match it to the chili and garlic flavors which my wife, my friends and I tend to enjoy in quantity. Therefore, we had two quite different Rieslings and a Grenanche which were all perfectly matched to the food.
While I love an aged, kerosene type of Riesling, it would not be a good match for Korean BBQ. Korean BBQ has powerful flavors coming from the chili and garlic, but is also delicate and cooling from the leaf of lettuce and other cold side vegetable dishes. Therefore, a younger to medium aged, crisper Riesling is far better suited. I had about a half bottle of the 2006 Annies Lane Clare Valley Riesling from the night before and knew it would do nicely. This was an older, richer Riesling, perfectly balanced and a joy to drink on its own and with Korean BBQ. It still had a crisp edge to it, but had developed some complex flavors and a beautiful texture on the tongue and cheeks. The important thing was that there was no oily taste that I often love on a Riesling when drinking it with cheese, or with certain types of seafood.
That was followed by a much younger, lighter Watervale Riesling, the 2011 Mount Horrocks. This was a highly recommended Riesling gifted to us a few nights previously as we selected some other white wines to drink that evening. This wine certainly lived up to its reputation! After attacking the food with the 2006 Annies Lane, we took a breather with the much lighter Watervale Riesling. The 2011 Mount Horrocks had a citrus lemon-lime flavor and was sustaining and refreshing at the same time. I usually try to go from lighter whites to heavier reds during the course of a meal, but tonight we started with the heavier Riesling (primarily because it was already opened) and then onto the lighter one. This really worked well! It was similar to the middle movement in a symphony where you are taking a bit of a breather (an adagio or andante) between the opening usually brisk declaration (allegro) and the final movement where everything comes together in a resounding climax. The 2011 Mount Horrock Riesling was our ‘andante’ that evening! (And you probably were thinking I was just a wino!)
I need to consider other meal plans where I mix it up a bit like this instead of building continuously to a wine climax. This really allowed us to pace the meal and enjoy the time we had together without ‘rushing’ my wine drinking. (I did not even realize that I might have been doing that!)
We then finished the evening with the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache. This grape is most often associated with the Châteauneuf-du-Pape region in France. The Grenache grape has a smooth soft texture to it, yet still possesses good body. To me, it combines the best elements of a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Shiraz. I have had a number of different wines from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, but admittedly not some of the very best (as they can be very expensive!). One very nice bottle I had recently was the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard with turkey, mash and gravy and it was exquisite!
There is not a lot of Grenache grown in Australia and this is the first one I have had. I was blown away! So smooth and far better than the medium range Châteauneuf-du-Pape wines I have had (the 2006 Chateauneuf-Du-Pape Perrin & Fils Les Sinard being the exception!) It had big, fresh fruit flavors of cherry and raspberry. The 1850 on the bottle actually is the year the vines were planted. These are some seriously mature and hearty vines! I am looking forward to getting some more of this wine!
I asked previously, “What is Korean BBQ?” It is really a cacophony of flavors going on in your mouth. That is why I believe a Grenache or a Tempranillo goes better than a primary red grape such as a Cabernet Sauvignon or Shiraz with Korean BBQ. We are more conditioned to knowing what a Cabernet Sauvignon or a Shiraz tastes like, whereas a Grenache or a Tempranillo is a discovery in new taste and therefore seems to match better with Korean BBQ.
Next time, I will try a Tempranillo unless I get my hands on more of the 2006 Cirillo 1850 Grenache – that wine would be tough to pass on with any meal!
My wife is making spaghetti tonight for dinner. It will be tomato-based, with mince and chirizo. And it will have lots of garlic, onions and other spices. Therefore, I needed to select a wine with strong spice and pepper flavors, yet something delicate enough to go with pasta. There are very few wines that accomplish both. While many Cabernet Sauvignon are delicate enough, it would be missing the spice. Some Shiraz’ certainly have the spice, but are often so thick with granular tannins that you can chew the wine on its own! Very few wines are delicate and spicy at the same time.
One great exception to that is the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz. This is one of the best Australian reds ever made in my opinion. For my 58th birthday, I served up this wine just before the 2001 Yalumba Octavius following that wine with the 1981 Penfolds Grange (which is a great wine!), and people seemed a bit ‘let down’ with the Octavius and Grange! While both are tremendous wines in their own right, the finish on the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz lasted ‘almost forever’ and had a more delicate sensuous texture than the heavier and grittier Octavius and Grange.
Some of you may think that such a fine wine is an overkill for spaghetti, but my wife, “DAZ in the Kitchen” makes a truly wonderful spaghetti well deserving of this wine! And it has been a surreal week at work and when I arrived home, I just wanted to embrace the very best bottle of wine I could. I knew we were having spaghetti, and wanted a wine to go well with it, but I also wanted a special treat to drink on its own as I write this blog post. (I am well into my second glass now, so expect my creativity to continue to increase!)
The 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 was the second to last vintage of Vat 9 that Andrew Thomas made while the chief red wine maker at Tyrrell’s and I remember him telling me it was one of his favorite vintages. This is certainly one of my all-time favorite wines. I was very fortunate to buy all remaining stock of this vintage from Tyrrell’s several years ago (21 bottles) and have about 9 bottles left for special occasions and sharing with great friends. But tonight, I needed a special bottle to treat myself and something worthy of matching up well with my wife’s most amazing spaghetti!
And that bottle of very fine red of choice for tonight was the 1998 Tyrrell’s Vat 9 Shiraz. Always feel free to treat yourself when you need it! I did.
First off, Lebanese is a lot of different types of food. From Hummus, vine leaves, and pickled vegetables to potato coriander, chicken shawarma, spicy beef sausages and much more! What wine could possibly match up well with such a variety of food? The simple answer is Semillon! I had a lunch the other day with 13 different Lebanese dishes and the Semillon worked beautifully for the entire meal.
I also imagine that a spicy Shiraz could could well if you wanted to switch from Semillon in the middle of a Lebanese meal also if some of the guests really prefer red wine. I am confident that you cannot go wrong with Semillon for Lebanese food. I have had three Lebanese meals in the last month, and I have had the 2005 Kelman Semillon, the 2003 Terrace Vale Campbells Old Vine Semillon and also the 1994 Waverley Estate Semillon. These are three very different styles of Semillon and they all matched exquisitely with Lebanese food.
And for one of the meals, I also brought an open bottle of an excellent Riesling to try. On its own, most people would say the Riesling was far superior as a wine to the 2005 Kelman Semillon, but the Kelman matched far better with Lebanese food. That is why I continue to empasize the ‘right grape with the right food.’
Both the Kelman and the Terrace Vale where a little crisper (and much younger!) than the Waverley Estate. The best Semillon I have ever had (even superior to the iconic 1999 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon) was the 1990 Waverley Estate Semillon. This is among the top three white table wines I have ever drunk. But the 1994 Waverley Estate is very close! It has a golden color, smooth, rich mouth feel, and tastes of orange and tangerine flavours with a touch of lemon. It is simply heavenly and a great match for Lebanese food.
I found the smoother texture and richer taste of the aged Semillon to go a little bit better with the rich sauces for the shish barack and the yogurt. It also matched up beautifully with the hummus with mince and pine nuts. The 1994 Waverley Estate Semillon is just a better wine (and about twice as expensive) than the other two. But the 2005 Kelman and the 2003 Terrace Vale Semillons are very good wines. Most people would call then excellent wines and I have gotten great reviews from people I have shared them with. But 15 – 20 year old Waverley Estate Semillons are in a class of their own.
There is no need to review the menu at a Lebanese restaurant to determine what wine to bring. Just bring a Semillon and order what you like. You won’t be disappointed.
“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!]
For a long time now, I have been craving blackened swordfish and black bean soup. It is difficult to find black beans in Australia and nobody serves Cajun style fish in restaurants here. Therefore, I went to the Internet and got some recipes for both and for once, I did the cooking tonight instead of my famous (to me anyway!) chef partner, DAZ from Daz in the Kitchen fame!
Surprisingly, the meal turned out really well. All day, I was pretty certain I would be serving up a Hunter Valley Semillon to go with it, and had decided on the 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 as a slightly better match than the truly outstanding 1999 Meerea Park Alexander Munro Semillon. The 2005 Vat 1 would have been a little crisper and set off the Cajun spices better than the smoother Museum release 1999 Meerea Park.
However, for some reason just before starting to cook, I asked my lovely bride if she would prefer a Riesling instead of a Semillon. I had been staring at a bottle of the 2008 Grosset Polish Hill and decided to raise the question. Well, she ALWAYS prefers a Riesling so said she would prefer that. I was going to have a glass while blogging before I started cooking and as soon as I took my first sip, I realized we had made a mistake.
The 2008 Grosset Polish Hill is a beautiful wine and many reviewers rated the 2008 vintage as 99/100. This is a spectacular wine! But it was too metallic to match up well and blend with the Cajun spices on the fish. I could have opened the 2005 Tyrrell’s Vat 1 Semillon in addition, but then I would have two open bottles of white and I knew I was going to be opening a great bottle of red (1992 Lindemans Pyrus) tomorrow, and that is too much wine for the two of us over two days. Therefore, we ‘suffered’ through drinking a great wine and eating great food, but not having the combination work as well as it should have.
There are just certain times when the right grape with the food makes the wine a much better wine regardless of rating and what you think of the other wine. I try not to get carried away with wine and food matching, but some foods just demand one grape over the another. And tonight was one of those meals where that was true. Even a mediocre Semillon would have worked far better than the best Riesling.
I had a similar experience a few weeks ago when eating at a Lebanese restaurant and trying out both an average Semillon and an excellent Riesling. The average Semillon won the battle that night also. No matter how good the wine, if the grape does not match up well with the food, you will not have a great drinking or eating experience.
Never assume that what is on the wine list is all the wine that is on offer at a restaurant. It pays to ask and minimally you may be surprised to find some alternatives wines not listed (wine received, but wine list not updated yet), or even be offered a wine from the owners private collection!
Today we had a most fabulous lunch at Bistro Molines in the Hunter Valley. The place is one of the very few Hatted restaurants in rural NSW. Robert and Sally Molines have been together for 40 years, and always in the food business. They are true food icons in the Hunter Valley. It is one of our very favorite restaurants, and every visit is a special occasion. For some really special occasions like our anniversary, we might bring along an exceptional bottle of wine from our cellar, but today, having a normal great lunch with great friends, I ordered wine off the wine list.
Bistro Molines has a nice selection of wines, including Australian and imported wines at very reasonable prices for a Hatted restaurant. After looking over the menu and the specials for the day, it became apparent that the four of us would all be having different starters and different mains. Therefore, I would have a bit of a challenge selecting wines that went well with every dish. We agreed as a table to venture forth with a Riesling over a Chardonnay for the white and selected a very nice Kabbinett Riesling from Mosel. The Riesling was sweet, but not too sweet, with a beautiful smooth texture. (Embarrassingly, I do not remember nor did I take a picture of the wine, so I do not remember the wine maker.)
For the red wine, I really wanted something with some age on it, but many of the really good choices were from 2010 or 2011. The wine list had a 2010 Cape Mentelle Zinfandel which is an outstanding wine. I have had the 2007 and 2008 vintages, including the 2007 vintage at Bistro Molines a year ago. While the 2010 vintage is considered a superior wine to the 2007, it should ideally be drunk from 2015 – 2030 and I felt it was far too young to drink this wine today. I asked if they still had any of the 2007 vintage around and after checking, the waitress told me they had one bottle left, but since they had a new order of the 2010 in, the wine list had been updated to show that.
While the 2010 vintage would be a better choice to drink in five years, it was not th best choice for today. The 2007 vintage would be far more mature and better drinking today so we selected that. While the 2007 vintage was not on the wine list, it was ours for the asking! Restaurants often have a number of wines which are single bottles left, or other special wines that do not appear on the wine list. Therefore, it is worthwhile asking if there is something in particular you are interested in.
Zinfandel is not widely grown in Australia, but if you are going to buy a Zindandel, make sure it is from Margaret River. Zinfandel grows best in Napa Valley and Margaret River is as close in climate and soil conditions as you are going to find in Australia. It is a lighter style of grape with texture similar to a Pinot Noir, but sweeter in general. The 2007 Cape Mentelle has flavors of blackberry and ripe raisins. It went well with the duck, the veal and the kidneys we had for mains (my wife continued to dring the Riesling to go with her mussels.)
Remember, even if you like what you see on the wine list, do not assume it is all that is on offer. By asking, you establish an intimacy with the sommelier or owner that will serve you well in getting some even better choices of wines not available to those who don’t ask!
Wine, of course! Food is optional this evening. My wife has done such a great job feeding me over the last few days and we have had some very nice wine matching her great meals. Two nights ago we had a beautiful spiral pasta with chicken and pesto and I opened a 2007 Annies Lane Coppertrail Riesling from the Clare Valley. Last night, we had a tremendous meal of pork fillet with steamed vegetables, mash and gravy. While I would usually open a Pinot Noir to go with a pork fillet, we opened a 2008 Glandore TPR Tempranillo. Tempranillo is a secondary grape, originally from Spain. It is heavier than Pinot Noir, but went very well with the pork, especially when covered in gravy!
Tonight, we are not really cooking and I may make a sandwich later or just have some fruit while blogging. But for now, I am enjoying finishing off the open bottle of the Annies Lane Riesling and then the rest of the Glandore Tempranillo. Both are great wines to drink on their own which I am currently doing.
The Annies Lane Riesling is a great example of how you can buy an excellent Clare Valley Riesling for $15, cellar it for several years and have it drink like a $40 bottle! And there is a sweetness to the Tempranillo, like the taste of a strawberry jam or marmalade. It really is a nice change from my regular red grapes of Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.
We are looking forward to going to our place in the Hunter Valley tomorrow evening for an extended four-day weekend and some great wine drinking and reflection. We will have four days up there with little distraction. I will use that time to write another in the series of Five Best Wine Meals Ever and finish the other part of “Can we really describe how wine tastes?” I am looking forward to that. These posts deserve several dedicated hours to get right.
We will also have a great lunch with good friends at Bistro Molines this weekend, one of the very few hatted restaurants in rural NSW. Brilliant views, brilliant food and brilliant ambiance – and dinner to be replaced by nap! Lunches at Bistro Molines tend to be a three hour affair.
Well, back to drinking and getting this post published for you to hopefully enjoy. And let me know what you are drinking right now!
Last night we had some magnificent Chicken Pot Pies for dinner. My lovely bride has posted the recipe in her blog DAZ in the Kitchen. Make sure you enjoy these tummy warmers before spring gets truly on top of us (here in Australia – in the US you are now moving into Chicken Pot Pie season!). These pot pies are easy to make and simply delicious! Don’t just throw a Swanson frozen pie in the microwave if you are in the US either! Follow the recipe and provide yourself a real treat! (And serve Chardonnay with it!)
From my post yesterday, you understand that we choose a beautiful Chardonnay, the 2006 Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna to go with the Chicken Pot Pies. Tonight we are having Orange Chicken for dinner, yet having a Riesling instead of Chardonnay as it will match with the food better.
So, why not just do Chardonnay again? Yesterday, the food was tasty but mild, had a creamy sauce and a light pastry crust on top. Not wanting to have either the wine or the food outshine the other, we choose a mellow Chardonnay to go match equally with the food in terms of taste and texture. However, tonight’s meal is Orange Chicken, which uses a tangy-er orange concentrate, some balsamic vinegar and a few other ingredients. Therefore, we needed an edgier, sharper wine and therefore it made sense to select a Riesling.
There are a lot of great Australian Rieslings, especially from Clare Valley, SA. But my favorite Riesling of late comes from Alsace and Hugel. We are drinking the 2009 vintage and it is a spectacular wine for the money. We paid $30 per bottle for this.
I have some great Rieslings we paid $15 – $18 per bottle for, including Ladbroke, Leo Buring, Annie’s Lane, and Mamre Brook, but I did not have one of those chilled. After this bottle of the 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling, I will need to be more selective as I only have four bottles left and this is a truly spectacular wine. In fact, this wine is so good, it is part of my second best wine meal ever! I may need to see if I can source some more.
The 2009 Hugel Alsace Riesling has melon flavors and a long finish. And dare I say, a slight taste of banana. (Or maybe the banana impression is coming from the baking of banana bread by my wife today that is sitting on top of the kitchen counter!)
As an aside, the other thing I love about French wines, is the corks! They still use corks more often than not (I am not sure I would find an Australian Riesling from 2009 with a cork – can anyone help me out here?), and such beautifully labeled corks. I keep all of my labeled corks in a big basket (which I hope is filled some day!) and the French are helping me out here. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the value and the risk-adverse approach to using screw tops, but there is still an ambient experience of opening a cork, and looking at how it held up that is difficult to beat. It is just one more small, but nice element to complete a lovely Sunday evening meal.
With the great success of Grange over many years, Penfolds has always been interested in the concept of the creating a ‘White’ Grange. The Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna is as close as they have come and it is commonly referred to as White Grange. It is made from reserved Chardonnay grapes and usually cost around $130 per bottle. I was very fortunate to pick up several dozen of the 2006 Yatarnna for a good price when some were found and treated as excess stock by the dealer.
During the 1990’s, Penfolds tried a number of ‘trial bins’ in an attempt to create a White Grange before settling on Yatarnna. And to be honest, Penfolds was looking for an iconic white wine to match Grange, but never really had to the intent of marketing any wine as White Grange. This was a moniker of wine writers around Australia.
In 1992, Penfolds started creating a number of trial bins to create an iconic white wine. I actually have four bottles of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Trial Bin Semillon, which I bought in 1997 in a Melbourne bottle shop. I have not tried one yet, but am now excited to find out if this wine was a mistake or not! I was only spending between $12 – $18 per bottle then for wines I did not know anything about, but wanted to try. (In 1997, I did pay $200 per bottle for several bottles of the 1992 Penfolds Grange which were released that year.) Therefore, I am certain I did not pay more than $18 for the Trial Bin Semillon I picked up.
One of the characteristics of Grange is that is was built to last a very long time, and I expect they wanted to have the same characteristic for an iconic white. Therefore, Semillon certainly would have been a good choice of grape to experiment with. In selling off wine recently and thinning my stock, I had the four bottles of the 1995 Penfolds Adelaide Hills Trial Bin Semillon on sale for $10 per bottle! Fortunately, nobody bought any. I will be trying a bottle soon to decide if I have an unknown gem here or not. If so, then I will gladly share the remaining bottles with some great friends, and if not, we will use the remaining bottles for cooking wine!
But back to the Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna. This is one of the finest Chardonnays you will find in Australia. I still like my Montrachets a bit better, but the Yatarnna is a great Chardonnay. I am currently sipping a 2006 Yatarnna which is stunning and one of the better vintages. (The first vintage of Yatarnna was in 1995.) It has powerful lemon flavors and some peach and grass flavor. It is mellow but with a slight edge and crispness. This wine should drink well for another five years or so.
I selected this wine to go with my wife’s homemade chicken pot pie which is in the oven now! I am looking forward to that combination and am sure she will have an upcoming recipe in her blog “DAZ in the Kitchen.” This mellow, yet robust wine will match beautifully win the chicken pot pie.
I have been upset at some of the commercial finanglings of TWE with the Penfolds brand, and have sold off most of my Penfolds inventory, but I have a dozen of this great wine left. My wife has an easy way to tell if a wine is outstanding or not, and that is to ‘not notice’ that the bottle has been emptied so quickly when it it just the two of us drinking it, and that always happens with the 2006 Penfolds Bin 144 Yatarnna! In fact, my wife just took a sip and stated, “You see, this wine does all the right things. You sip it, it hits my palate perfectly and goes right down without thinking about it.”
