Something about opportunistic crime really tickles me & I’m not too sure why but it could be something about the inner monologue that I imagine would accompany it. Something along the lines of;
“I wouldn’t normally steal a car, but since this one is running and parked outside my house I guess I might as well take it”
It could just be me but I find that thought process pretty amusing, at least until that very thing happened a few hundred metres from my Perth house, scared a few people & possibly dropped our house prices. Now obviously most of us aren’t criminals regardless of the situation, but that small section of society that would jump on this kind of opportunity seems very much in tune with the Aussie ‘yeh me ancestors were sent here as convicts for stealing a loaf of bread’ type spirit. I’m guessing that when one is committing to an opportunistic crime you’ve have a split second to remember if you’ve been in this situation before, weigh up the risks and make a quick judgement call on it.
You won’t go to jail for it, but picking what I wine is at a blind tasting wine is somewhat similar. You analyze the situation around you & hope it feels familiar enough, with enough memory triggers to make a judgement call. If enough is in your favour, you’ll make a decent fist of it, if not it can be quite embarrassing. And the only way to get better is practice, something that’s quite easy to do at home.
If you’re on board, start by putting at least three wines aside in a different room. If you’re a beginner start with a cabernet, a shiraz and pinot. Get a friend or significance other to crack one of the bottles and bring you a glass from a wine chosen at random. Think about whats in your glass and talk your way through what you think it might be and why.
When you’re getting better, incrementally make it more difficult. Maybe you could line up five different shiraz and have a go at guessing region and producer. Or sod it all and just go carjacking – what do I care?
On to the wines then & here are some highlights of two very good drinking months.
Fletcher Barolo 2013 Alta Pete . $70 odd, mailing list.
As impressive as a full moon is, I think the moon is at its prettiest when it’s just a slither. I’ve always found something romantic or mystical about that shape, it brings back childhood memories from stories and the like. Perhaps watching Alice and Wonderland and expecting a Chesire Cat to fall out of the sky plays a part as well? Romantic or not, the lovely thing about that slither is you know there is more there but the moon is only revealing part of what it wants to show you that night.
For those that don’t know, Dave Fletcher is an Australian who fell under the spell of Nebbiolo and now makes wine over there in Piedmont. His story is interesting, the wines are always fantastic and it is well worth jumping on the mailing list to access them if you can.
My wife and I drank this over a few hours one night out on the deck and found a generous, strong wine with plenty of perfume and a bit more depth than the equally fine Barbaresco of this vintage. A beautiful wine, and much like the moon that night, this is a wine which is only showing what it wants at this age & has plenty more to reveal.
Spinifex ‘Esprit’ Barossa Grenache Mataro 2015 $35
Spinifex are one of those reliable Barossa operations which every now and then I’ll grab three or six of something to tide me over, whether that’s the Indigene, La Maline, Moppa Shiraz or this reliable drop: the Esprit. When you buy wine from Spinifex you are buying a bottle made by one of Australia’s great wine making talents, from grapes he’s carefully sourced by dedicated growers from vineyards often with particularly old vines. With that kind of formula not a lot can go wrong, and the results are more often than not rather superlative.
Onto this, and present are the super furry tannins that I often find in young GSM wines, 30 minutes of air and they are no longer, leaving behind a very pure, drinkable Grenache blend. I think you could serve this wine at a lunch next to a pinot and it wouldn’t be a ridiculous comparison given the very attractive fruit flavours and silky length. Nice wine this & in a good place as a four year old.
Collector ‘Marked Tree Red’ Canberra Shiraz 2016 $28
Like Spinifex, Collector wines owe much to the talent of their winemaker who sources this gem of a wine from various vineyards around the Collector region which North East of Canberra. I got a bit tired of waiting for the 2015 reserve to come out, so picked up a half dozen of this to tide me over for a while. The obvious comparison is Clonakilla but the wines to me seem quite different, super fragrant (this is Canberra after all), but ‘bunchy/stemmy’ and more light & silky in structure. This is not a shiraz for steak, but rather one for some thinly sliced carpaccio. On tasting a day after opening we found it had picked up some nice weight & I don’t think five or ten years in the cellar would do it too much harm.
On top of that it’s good value to boot: forget ‘good for the price’. This is just plain good.
Castle Rock ‘Diletti’. Great Southern Chardonnay 2014 $25
Some neighbours came round one Saturday afternoon and exchange for me offering up on them some good food and wine I had the pleasure of good company and plentiful liquor in my backyard without having to plan a ride home. Usually when you have these kind of afternoons one or two wines in particular stand out but on this occasion this wasn’t the case as everything drank reasonable well & on the day this was my personal highlight.
The Porongorups are a pretty special part of WA and Castle Rock have done what not many Great Southern producers have managed: to make a Chardonnay approaching the quality of their fantastic Rieslings. A wine very much to my style in that it was very savoury and gave the impression much of the complexity coming from the lees or some barrel work. Very smart buying at under $30.
Woodlands ‘Clementine’. Margaret River cabernet blend 2016 $39 retail, $33 members.
We were lucky enough to have Andrew Watson host us last time we stumbled into the Woodlands cellar door. In a region where ‘easy going’ is the norm he radiated a wonderful intensity and strikes me as the kind of guy that lies awake at night wondering how he can improve their wines by 0.02%. Woodlands is that kind of operation, quality driven right down to fruit sorting their entry levels in the winery. And it translates into the glass.
The Clementine (cabernet sauvignon 55%, malbec 16%, merlot 15%, petit verdot 14%) comes from the Woodlands brook vineyard was planted in 2001, with vine spacings at double the intensity of their original vineyard. In an era where virtually every vineyard has a pricey reserve wine whether vine age or quality merits it or not, on paper $40 odd seems pretty reasonable for the top wine from a vineyard like this. Then when you take into account what is actually in the glass is it seems doubly reasonable.
So on to the wine which is very Woodlands in style & reminsent of the ‘Margarets’ of old both in terms of flavour and ambition. Rich and generous with earthy dark fruits & classic, old world oak: savoury and proper. This is a wine that could compete with the big boys of the region & will age effortlessly for two decades.
Thompson Estate Cabernet. Margaret River 2016
I’m starting to think you can buy 2016 Margaret River with your eyes closed, but even in that context this is particularly splendid indeed. This is the best I’ve tried from this reliable producer: this is proper Wilyabrup gear.
Ravensworth Shiraz Viognier. Canberra 2017
Ravensworth S/V is just one of those classic ‘go to’ wines that usually ticks all the boxes without costing an arm and a leg. Even in the context of Canberra Shiraz it has the most seductive fragrance; the kind of perfumes you don’t forget, they might even remind you of your first kiss (if it’s one you look back on fondly).
My benchmark for this label is still the 2015 & I quote that bottle directly ‘smells like a Turkish bazaar; roses and violets along with exotic spice, pomegranate, red fruit and dried herbs, there’s even, I swear, a touch of shisha smoke’. When the winemaker can write like this it does make you wonder why you’d bother with your own descriptors, and indeed I’ve got little more to add (despite the different vintage).
On top of said perfume, this year the colour seems a little duller than usual which is irrelevant quality wise but still a point of interest. Taste wise this release also seems a bit more ‘bunchy’ as well. Impressive Length.
All in all the 17 is a fine offering, even if it’s not quite at the heights of the 15 that won me over. My hunch is that this label still has a few more heights to scale, the journey over the next ten years or so will be exciting. And if they were offering the 18 en primeur I’d have locked in a case already: you could gamble your local member on it being a belter. Special kudos for the Blackadder reference on this years label. Getting this wine on your radar is a plan so cunning you could brush your teeth it.
By Farr ‘Farrside’. Geelong Pinot Noir 2017. $180 on the wine list, $80 odd in retail land.
Having two young kids and living rural means trips to the finest restaurants in Perth are few and far between. Still, my wife and I managed to get to Balthazar the other night and ate rather well indeed whilst indulging in this beauty, taking the recommendation from our waiter. When you’re not use to markups like this they can be a little confronting, but I can definitely handle it once or twice a year.
Proper new world Pinot this: nothing sweet and with an impressive mid palette weight. Earthy, with plenty of cherry, Asian spices & nice complexity on the finish. Acid was a little overdone perhaps though it is something which will resolve itself in time & I can see this lasting long term. I really enjoyed this & might even buy some 18’s.
That’s it for the good stuff but I should also should mention that whilst I didn’t take notes, a 12 Clerc Milon, NV Krug, Felton Road ‘Calvert’, Dukes Reserve Rielsing & even a modest Woodlands Cab Merlot from 2005 were all sensational.
Back to the barley harvest for me then. Adios!
The Wine Accomplice 