Single Bottle club – Wine Lunch
The theme for this lunch was WA wines up against their National and International counterparts. People were put in pairs and asked to bring a wine that from WA and one that wasn’t (with a matching dish). Wines were served blind, then we voted, & subsequently the wines were revealed. The main thing we were looking for was a fair fight & it was remarkable for the most part just how well the wines matched with their direct competition.
Sparklings
Windance Chenin that had been put in the sodastream
Vs
Kreglinger 2015 (Tassie)
Billecart Salmon NV
Vs
Plantagenet Blanc de Blanc 2017
A lot of Sparkling to kick off the day, and a tough one for the West Aussies as we’re not overly renowned for our bubbles. The Sodastreamed Chenin was surprisingly good with decent bubbles and wasn’t overtly sweet. Crazy. One to try at home as in all honestly it was pretty good. The Tassie wine though was very good & I thought it could have easily been decent NV Champagne from a good producer. In round two the Billecart did its business: it was a cut above & the obvious pick of these four. The last time we had this in a line up it seemed a fraction sweet but comparison is King and up against more modest competition today it looked mighty fine indeed. The Plantagenet was quite good out of the gates but faded a bit, became a bit angular (or something?) and a few thought it was a bit strange. Without too much trouble we all picked it as the WA wine & also as a Blanc de Blanc, which wasn’t a bad effort. It might not quite be drinking to its price point ($45) but I thought it was better than reasonable. Votes are for the second flight, as it didn’t seem quite fair to count the votes on the first.
Group vote: Non WA
My Vote: Non WA
Riesling
Seppelt Drumbourg 2019
Vs
Frankland Estate Isolation Ridge 2019
These were two highly rated wines that collectively we got nowhere near picking: giving wildly inaccurate guesses on region, year & also somehow missing the quality that stood before us. I thought the more expressive wine might have had a few years on it and guessed the other one was young. Fair dinkum. They were both young and in the lower-acid/lower Co2 kind of style: just not quite in my comfort zone, which is generally for more zippy wines but with 5-7 years on them. The Seppelt initially seemed a bit flat to me & it was hard to see 98 JH points here. Looking back at the wine once it was revealed it was clear I’d missed something: it was nice and pure, slightly floral but restrained. No rough edges and I still think it lacked a bit of energy but I’d be going JH’s opinion not mine. Around the table we all generally thought the Frankland was the better wine, it had generous flavours and glided across the palate. I remember when we visited recently Hunter (the winemaker) saying they’d really put a lot of effort into making these wines more approachable young & he was also confident that their newer styled Rieslings would last a long, long time in the cellar. This is a winery that unequivocally knows what they are doing so I’m looking forward to looking at my 17’s in five or ten years. There is so much variance in style in Australian Riesling when you consider region, age, acidity & sweetness levels & I think it worth tasting a lot to find out what you like. Two good wines & perhaps if one was a shocker the other would have really stood out as brilliant. That said, the votes here were very solidly with the WA in one of the more one sided votes.
Group Vote: WA
My Vote: WA
Chardonnay.
Kendall Jackson ‘Vintners Reserve’ Chardonnay (Napa) 2017
Vs
Cullen Kevin John 2017
Things got pretty interesting here with some vocal, out there opinions (which is kind of the point of these days). In terms of origin the Kendall Jackson was hard to pick: we knew it must have been non-WA but it didn’t scream Victoria or NZ. It definitely wasn’t Burgundy. It was seductively ripe, opulent and chock-full of oak but slightly clumsy with a metallic kind of vibe and I liked it less the longer I spent with it.The other wine was obviously Wilyabrup, and although no one guessed Cullen we threw out some names from some vineyards a stones throw or two away.
As for the wine, initially it seemed a fraction reticent, but as it slowly opened up in the glass and found itself nearer to room temperature it revealed itself as genuinely beautiful, tending towards that creamy style with no obvious primary fruit descriptors. I thought there was a massive gap here in quality: to me the Cullen made the Napa look quite rough around the edges and not one you’d want a second glass off but surprisingly enough the votes went the other way reflecting a stylistic preference. An interesting reveal if I’ve ever seen one! Perhaps the Cullen would have benefited from coming out closer to room temperature & I also suspect it will drink better in 3-5 years. This was a really interesting flight.
Group Vote: Non WA
My Vote: WA
Pinot Noir
Picardy Tete du Cuvee 2014
Vs
Bitouzet Prieur Volnay 2015
I brought these and sweated over it, second-guessing my choice right up to five minutes before leaving. In the end I brought a Burgundy over a Vic Pinot to match with the 2014 Picardy Tete du Cuvee. I was at Picardy for a week or so in 2014 & plunged this wine quite a few times. You knew there was something special there & there was genuine buzz around the winery about its quality. Obviously I’m biased but every bottle I’d had so far has drunk really well and I think it’s still got a bit more blossoming to go. The Volnay isn’t a flash one (as far as Burgundy goes at least) but is a bit of a go-to & they drink pretty well after minimal cellaring. Both wines presented quite well & were surprisingly similar in style: elegant & all about mid palate depth/fleshy and savoury. There wasn’t much issue guessing the Picardy (what else was I going to bring?) but when people guessed on the Volnay surprisingly no-one really thought Burgundy: out of peoples comfort zones perhaps? Perhaps these wines weren’t exactly what people were expecting, they certainly didn’t give a massive amount away on the nose but personally I thought it was nice to drink some proper Pinot Noir. And by that I mean a million miles away from the sweetened up fruit juice/NZ/kid with too much self esteem kind of style that impresses initially but gets tiring very quickly. In the end the Picardy got the chocolates but there wasn’t much in it.
Group Vote: WA
My Vote: WA
Blind Wine
Tom pulled out a wine from his cellar (I’d actually brought it) as a bluff. It was the Herve Syrah 2018: a natural wine from the Rhone that split opinions a bit in our little wine chat group. Georgie struggled to drink it at our place & I suffered through it with no desire to do so again. I’ve got nothing to add to my previous note but did note reassuringly that not too many people enjoyed this. I can see where people are coming from that do: it has quite a nice purity & a decent aromatic profile but just isn’t for me. Someone suggested a link between a sour beer which wasn’t a bad pick up.
Cabernet Sauvignon
St Hugo ‘The unspoken promise’ Barossa 2014
Vs
Deep Woods Reserve 2015
The two legends that brought these hadn’t previously tried either of the wines, rather they were recommended these as a bit of ‘fair fight’ pairing and credit where it’s due, it was definitely a fair fight. They’ve both got palates I really respect & boast cellars chock full of Woodlands, Moss Wood, Balnaves & Majella so what I say here is just about these two wines and definitely nothing else. Initially here, I really liked the wines but that enthusiasm waned fairly quickly as they both seemed to be in that blockbuster style with everything turned up to eleven and neither displayed a lot of varietal charm or responded to the air they had received. Because of that, and their similarity they were quite hard to pick as neither screamed WA. In the end I thought I saw a bit of ‘Coonawarra/Roseworthy acid’ in the St Hugo and that was enough to convince me that the Deep Woods was the WA wine. To be frank, there is something very, very bizarre about Deep Woods rise to prominence and the high scores they get from some critics because the wine is consistently ordinary & completely unremarkable even at the Reserve level. I can’t imagine the wines appealing to anyone with a decently refined palate & every time I have one, blind or not blind they just baffle me with how underwhelming they are. Ripe, blocky, ‘made in the winery’, charmless, characterless dross is overstating it but seriously: what-am-I-missing? Any decent 14% WA cabernet should have absolutely creamed this flight but this one couldn’t get the job done against a pretty uninspiring Barossa cabernet. It was good to see the group have a similar opinion: it makes me all the more skeptical about what some critics think & how they arrive at their scores. Of course it’s more likely it’s me and just I’m missing something with Deep Woods but on the flipside that’s the beauty of wine isn’t it. If we all loved and found beauty in the exact same thing we’d never be able to afford it. The savior was the Osso Bucco: that, & in particular the risotto was sublime and a credit to our host.
Group Vote: Non WA
My Vote: Non WA
Shiraz
Forest Hill Block 9 Shiraz 2007
Vs
Kalleske Greenock 2014
Geez I’ve missed some wines before but these went over my head like I was hiding under a bridge while a freight train passed over. To be fair, I was a long way out of my Shiraz comfort zone: I genuinely just don’t drink or seek out these types of wines. The handsome bloke next to me suggested the Forest Hill was cooler climate & a few of us foolishly laughed. Some context: 2014 was quite cool in the Barossa whilst in 07 the Great Southern made some of their most legendary, potentially long lived wines on account of a warm growing season that suited the late ripening varieties. I had the Forest Hill down as a ripe, young SA Shiraz & the Kalleske as a decent Great Southern drop with a bit of age on it. Ahhhh…not quite champ, maybe have another go(!) In hindsight the Forest Hill might have been close to wine of the day but I really didn’t enjoy it that much: with Shiraz/Syrah I’m looking for seductive perfumes & elegance, neither of which were forthcoming. In terms of size and build though, it was a remarkable wine. It’ll still be singing in 20 years & I’d love to revisit one then. It’s worth mentioning that George, Cam and a few of the other better palates picked it as WA so not everyone was as clueless as me. The Kalleske had taken on a few tertiary notes & had enough American oak to giveaway its origins to most. It was a good wine, delicious now but I don’t think this particular vintage will live forever. It usually releases at around that $35 mark which isn’t bad when you think what you can pay for these types of Barossan wines. Quite often once a wine is revealed you stick your nose in the glass and realize instantly what you’ve missed: it was obvious with the Kalleske but interestingly this didn’t happen with the Forest Hill and my blind spot remains. All in all, these were two (objectively) very good wines that were adored by the group. Voting was a bit sketchy, but from memory it was very close & marginally with the Kalleske.
Group Vote: Non-WA
My Vote: Non-WA
Sweet wines
Carmes de Rieussec 2015
Vs
Fraser Gallop ‘Ice pressed chardonnay’ 2014
One of the first times I attended a day like this the dessert wines came out at the end & I was genuinely gobsmacked at just how good one of them was. I’d never paid much attention to the style before but there it was staring me down, enchanting me like a mellifluous siren. It was near on the most complex & wonderful thing I’d ever put in my mouth. Glorious waves of flavour, apricots, honeyed marmalade, spring flowers dancing on the palate & endless length to boot. That was in one glass. The other wine was a Noble One that was (and always is) fairly simple, plenty sweet enough and just ok. When the group voted with the Noble One that day I nearly fell off my chair. The wine I’d fallen in love with was a 2006 Suduiraut who have vineyards propitiously sited next to the holy grail that is Y’quem. That day no one else wanted talk about how good it was, so I assumed that they probably drank similar wines all the time, I made a mental note to myself, and that was that.
Today the wine we had in front of us was the second wine of Riuessec and whilst it wasn’t Suduiraut, Gee-whiz-Queen-Liz it was good. I’ve not had a soft drink for near on 18 months & am not much of a sweet tooth in general (though the chocolate gets a better work out these days than it should). But I love the complexity from these wines: they can actually be quite ethereal and gorgeous if you look past the sweetness & explore the actual flavours. To me, the Fraser might have well have been toilet water with sugar dissolved in it. It was very, very (very, very) sweet with had no complexity that I could see. Perhaps its linear nature appealed? It got the votes by a margin of about 2 to 1, and once more I nearly fell off my chair (which is easy enough to do at this stage in the day anyway). Seriously, what-the-actual fuck?
Group Vote: WA
My Vote: Non WA
Final Tally
Group. Non WA 4, WA 3.
My Vote. Non WA 4, WA 3. Though different to the group on two flights.
Some thoughts.
As always, the single bottle club was an interesting & enjoyable day with the company predictably overshadowing the wine. As for the best wine of the day, overall was a hard one to pin point. A few beers after it’d wrapped up someone suggested the Billecart and that seemed fair enough. A few people loved the Shiraz flight & mentioned the Kalleske. I was throwing a blanket over the Billecart, the Sauternes & both the Pinots. If anything though it just reminded me to go and get some Suduiraut.
One thing we definitely saw was that in blind conditions our own tastes reign supreme. The people who liked full-bodied Shiraz loved these wines & those who enjoy big Chardonnays went gaga over the Napa which was good to see. It’s a good reminder (to myself) that your own preferences are simply that. So often on these types of days I’ll bring all the wines and force my love for specific styles on people, in particular looking past the warmer/richer/heavier wines. Today definitely showed that it might not be a fair approach to help people find wines that they will love. And my view on the flights that I’ve given here is just a viewpoint & a long way from gospel.
That said, I’d have absolutely love to re-do the Cabernet flight: the food deserved better. There is so much quality out there these days & I reckon if you threw two dozen half decent Margaret River cabernets down a hole once a year for the rest of your life and started nailing them at ten years after vintage you’d probably drink better than most of the deep pocketed connoisseurs around the world. I’m not sure the age of the wines helped either and if you really wanted to give benefit of the doubt, maybe those two wines were just at an awkward point of their development, which happens so often when they’re around that 5 years of age. But honestly that Deep Woods Reserve always seems to present so poorly & so I’ve got another (moronic) theory. I wonder if maybe this wine stands out so much in these wine shows & to the critics: the ripeness, the size would make it so different to what else is on the table & easy to score up because of that. Robert Parker made a career of championing wines like this. But context is everything and put up against a similar wine which is also (forgive me) full throttle South Australian in style and it’s found wanting. Who knows?
The other thing that was evident was that nothing tasted quite as good as it should have. It was just a funny kind of day & I’d (genuinely) like to know what it was on the biodynamic calendar. Every time a label was revealed you’d think wow this should be singing but nothing blew the roof open. The Cullen I think was temperature: it really was gorgeous & there were a few wines you could look at and say ‘ok that’s really nice’ but it didn’t hit you in the gut or in an emotional way which can (and should) happen. I’m wondering if partly it’s the blind tasting format? Sometimes I think the part of the brain that gets pre-occupied with going through its memory bank trying to identify what’s in the glass takes control at the expense of enjoying the character of the wine. For that reason I hate drinking expensive wines blind, though obviously I can see how it’s important for objectivity and great for discovering value wines without prejudice.
And lastly, I think – and I bang on about this a bit – here in WA we just seem make a lot of wines that maybe we shouldn’t. We can do a lot of things well here but when someone walks into your cellar door wanting a Sparkling, or a Shiraz, or a dessert wine it must make too much business sense or be too hard to resist pandering to it. But it still seems stupid to me and definitely counter intuitive. I know I’m not alone in struggling to take a winery seriously if they’re making a lot of different styles badly & it can overshadow their strengths. But you know what, that’s the wonderful thing about the freedom of the New World: you’re free to do what you like and let the market decide. So many wonderful vineyards would not exist if they weren’t free to plant what they thought might thrive, sometimes on naught more than a hunch.
But honestly, from a consumers perspective I think the naïve can get themselves into trouble in assuming that WA wines are always great value. Often they’re just clearly not. For a half bottle of either there is about a five-dollar difference in the Riussec we drank and the ice pressed. One was brilliant, one undrinkable. But what the fuck do I know? The wine I thought was brilliant didn’t even win the vote!
Until next time.
Ambrose.
The Wine Accomplice 