A few of us gathered on a Saturday early afternoon to celebrate the birthday of the Right Honourable member for Canarvon who had flown in for the long weekend to indulge in a multiple course lunch & far too many delicious bottles of wine. We have though, grown up just a fraction and long gone are the days when we would have marked the occasion by sneaking down to a pub and sticking a goon bag up a gum tree, subsequently taking turns to sneak off from whatever pub we were at to ‘top up’ at the ‘Coolabah tree’. Indeed, the food was absolutely sensational & our hosts went above and beyond & I thank them very much.
In terms of the format of the day, each person was asked to bring a secret wine to match the dish they had been allocated with two people going head to head for each course. Once we’d got a feel for the wines specific people were asked to do their best to identify year, variety, region & if possible producer, and were subsequently gently pressed by those who thought their guess may be more accurate. Generally on these days the guessing is a complete train wreck but today was an ok one for the speculators without any wildly embarrassing misses, though the same could not for said for those supposedly mastered in the art of hooking rings.
Tomato consume was matched with what turned out to be a Forest Hill 2014 block Riesling & a schmancy bottle of Australian Fiano (forget producer – my apologies). A few of us (myself included) suspected young-ish Clare for the Riesling but once it was revealed it was apparent that we should have picked it – you could have cut a diamond with this wine (tell tale sign its Great Southern). It was bloody fantastic & will live for years but for me about two years away from ‘the zone’. The Fiano was pretty delicious but overshadowed by how confused we all were by it – the sign of a job well done AB.
The fish (groper?) packed a lot of flavour along with a similarly flavoursome Hunter Valley Chardonnay from Scarborough that had people generally impressed (I very much enjoyed it), even leading to the words ‘Art Series’ being thrown around although one our hosts had a better grasp on it than us & picked the warmer climate notes. My wife had brought a Crawford River 2012 Riesling, a wine I thought presented very well, showing none of the petrol notes that I’d seen in an 2005 a few years ago.
A black glass came out, with a double blind wine to taste – eventually a few people nailed it but it took quite an embarrassing amount of time to even decide if it was white or red. My guess was a cheap-ish Margaret River Sem/Sav but it turned out it was a Te Koko from Cloudy Bay (sauvignon blanc) – this was quite genuinely scary & a lot of fun.
I’d been asked to bring a bottle to match the Pork and went for what I thought might be something a bit different which was a 2010 SC Pannell Grenache; one of my all time favourite wines. It was pretty closed to start with, but eventually showed a fair bit of elegance unfortunately without the incredible vibrancy and array of spring fruits and flowers that had made me fall in love – as always I should have brought a pinot! Anyways, as co-incidence would have it, my ‘opponent’ had brought also brought a Mclaren Vale Grenache (an 09) but the presented quite differently; my guess on this was a younger GSM. It exploded out of the blocks, packing a lot of primary fruit flavour for its age though showed its alcohol a bit and tired a bit in the glass & I think preference between the two was a question of style rather than quality.
The Tomahawk was accompanied by a Thomas (Hunter) Shiraz & a Vasse Felix Tom Cullity 2013 which was supremely good, familiar & I’d say most likely wine of the day – my wife guessed 2014, Wilyabrup & Cabernet which was a fine effort from someone who has barely had a drink for three years. The Thomas had quite a few admirers & was very good for what it was, albeit a bit outside my general comfort zone. The TC however was sensational & everything it should be; I’d love to go to bed with it more often, but reality is that it’s a wine I’m more than happy to drink when its presented to me, rather than forking out the $.
The member for Canarvon was up next, bringing a Claredon Hills Grenache (3 Grenache in one day is unheard of!) & it was definitely the best of those three though I was more focused on the other wine as it was my turn to guess. Here I managed to fluke it a bit in a narrow field as it was a sparkling Shiraz. I had a strong hunch that it was from the Grampians, which has a pretty unique taste and luckily I only knew one Grampians producer who made that style (being Seppelt), though I was roughly 7 years out with my guess on vintage.
Our Freo friends had bought a (rather delicious) cake of which I could just a fit a slice in, paired with a reasonable Sauternes & a very special 1986 Pedro Ximinez. Missions to our poor hosts unlocked cellar continued unabated, most notably nabbing a 2015 Gembrook Pinot. I think I was the one most taken with this; it had fine restraint of fruit instead of the abundance that generally turns me off Yarra Pinot, instead it was all about balance & structure and had just the tiniest schmidge of sour cherry more reminiscent of something that you might get in Mornington. It will be a great wine in 2-3 years time & I’ll certainly be chasing the new release.
My top three wines of the day were the 2013 Tom Cullity Cabernet, the 2015 Gembrook Hill Pinot & the 2012 Crawford River Riesling though you could throw a hankerchief over the next lot as there were very few disappointments. A fantastic day on the back of a sensational effort by our hosts and as far as I’m concerned that bag of Coolabah can stay up the tree forevermore.
The Wine Accomplice 