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You don’t see many straight Mourvèdres. This grape variety is normally an essential component of Rhône blends.

Quite a complex aromatic wine: blackberry and spice, animal hide, leather and dried fruits, vanilla and dried chocolate, red leather boots. The palate shows lighter red fruits, like raspberries, savoury nuances, a good concentration of fruits, ripe fine tannins, and a creamy texture. Mourvèdre is a bucolic varietal and tends to reductive characteristics (or so I am led to believe), so I reckon this time needs some time to evolve and soften and loosen up.

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Cabernet dominant nose with blackcurrant, berry, coconut/vanilla oak, dried herb and roast meat. Smells good - like a 389. On the palate quite meaty with baked red berry fruit, currants, spice, aniseed and noticable slightly sappy oak. Assertive tannins that look a bit hard. Tannic lightly herbal finish. I suspect this will soften out and become a better wine over the medium term. Not a great 389 but a pretty solid effort considering the tricky vintage. I might add that I think there is a vaguely medicinal/bandage overtone to be found in this bottle which is not necessarily a negative thing. Just an observation.

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So the 2003 vintage was difficult for Penfolds or so it seems…but so it was for the whole of South Australia. This 2004 release is a cracker and it augers very well for next years bin range release. Have faith ye doubters. I am a big fan of what was once known as the ‘old vine’. The 1994 vintage is still going strong and I think it is one of the better GSM blends available in the market place.

Meaty and leathery with morello cherry jam, florals and a hint of vanilla. Very little oak. Smells delicious. On the palate it is dry, meaty and leathery with dark chocolate and sweet dark fruit. Fine soft tannins and the correct amount of acidity to retain some freshness. Dry finish. Drank this with a big plate of braised oxtail and it was a match made in heaven. Sensibly priced, sensibly sealed with a screwcap and very hard to drink at a sensible pace.

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Pale pale straw. Interesting nose: white peach, musky tropical fruits, a bit of glacé pineapple. The palate is very much fruit driven – peaches and pineapple and lemon, crisp acid to balance, richly textured, has body and balance, dry savoury finish. It has been sitting in our fridge for a week and is still drinking well. This would seem to be an excellent follow-up to the 04 reviewed by Walshie here.

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For those that don’t know, this wine has everything thrown at it: sundry tools, the kitchen sink and even the Triton workbench.  Both whole bunches and de-stemmed fruit are pressed, then settled and racked directly into French oak barrels (a low proportion of which is new). Primary fermentation uses indigenous yeast and in this case did not finish until Christmas almost 8 months later.  The wine then goes through malolactic fermentation, and is left in barrel on the yeast lees until the very end of October of the following year.  It is then racked, fined and bottled.

Unlike 99% of other Sauvignon Blancs on the market: coconut husk, attar of roses, potpourri, buttery oak, and some oxidative and aldehydic characters – certainly a wine to divide the room – a real ‘love-it-or-hate-it’ kind of style.  The palate is a journey into unknown regions: crème brûlée, vanillan oak, weighty funky fruits, but beautiful balance and a drying finish. Doesn’t seem to be a wine that will profit from too much more aging (it’s 3 years old already), and I’m really at a loss to suggest what food you would consume with it. It is perhaps a bit pricey, but it you like it, there’s isn’t a lot of choice.

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My turn at the new 2003 Run Rig – the flagship wine from the Torbreck winery.

Initially shy, even with a decant, but came good after 4 hours or so.  Black/red in colour. Aromas of black fruits, liquorice, vanilla, bitumen intermingled with violets.  This smells like it has less viognier than the Descendant, and thank goodness for that.  The palate is powerful but not sweet – hulking great black fruits and chocolate, coffee beans and fresh peppercorns, smoke and fondant, all wrapped in prosciutto with the finest of tannins. This is a mammoth wine showing a fair amount of oak at the moment, but I suppose when you have such a big canvas you need a frame to match - not one for the faint hearted, and needs 3 years to settle down.

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If you ask my honest opinion of the marketing names given to some wines nowadays, then I would say that I think they are stupid. This is but another. But it must be working, because more and more of them are appearing. Anyway, I’m sounding grumpy beyond my years, so I’ll now tell you about the wine.

Clear red in colour. Liquified fruits: blackberries, raspberries, mulberries, all big and ripe and sweet and rolled on a hot bitumen road with some malt and stuffed into this bottle. The palate is also big and bold; sweet black and red fruits, a glycerol mouthfeel, some spice with a drying finish making it quite gnawish. The reflex action is to tip some more down the gullet. There are no tannins to confront, they seem to be perfectly shaped to swirl around the mouth cavity and slide down the throat.

It is what it is, and trying to not judge its style but its quality, it is a very good wine, but it is not Grenache as I’d like to see it – I think it should be a bit more serious. I believe 2003 was a hot vintage for McLaren Vale, but they seem to have coped quite well when making this wine - better than the 2002 in my opinion.

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To celebrate this momentous event we have added a couple of contributor profiles to the ‘about this site’ section….just so you know exactly what sort of people you are dealing with here.

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Just working my way through the new Penfolds bin releases at the moment. They should all be reviewed by the end of the week.

Aromas of red cherry/plum, blackcurrant, herb and tobacco and cedar/vanilla oak. Medium bodied palate with flavours of red fruits and blackcurrant. Strong tannins that are a touch hard. Some warmth. Dry tannic finish. At the moment the wine comes across as being very young and a little bit raw. Left overnight the wine improved and showed more complexity. A good wine no doubt, and one that will improve in the cellar, but $35 is pushing the envelope a bit in todays market perhaps?

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Good red colour. Deceptively old nose: secondary leathery characters, earth, coffee beans and red fruits. Palate is on the light side of medium bodied, much lighter than I expected, with sour morello cherries, savoury leather and herbal characters.  There is a nice concentration of fruit, but it does seem 10 years old.  Soft and supple, ready to drink, but don’t be tardy about it!

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A new and interesting addition to the Penfolds Bin range. This wine is sourced from cool climate vineyards in the Tumbarumba region of NSW. It sees only 2 and 3 year old French oak.

Aromas of brine, white peach, citrus, a touch of spice and some snapped green twig. There are some savoury lees derived smells there too. On the palate quite a zesty and tart little wine with flavours of sour green apple, white peach, citrus and natural yoghourt. Low oak influence showing up as some cinnamon spice but in this fine fruited style you notice even the slightest amount. There is a lot of acidity here, you could never call this wine broad, but it is mixed up with some creamy honeyed leesy flavours. An austere and fine boned wine. Not flavoury. I like it but I suspect many won’t. I also think it might need a couple of years in bottle to settle down at which point the score could go dramatically higher.

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Strangely, considering it is their flagship wine, The Dead Arm is probably my least favourite of all the d’Arenberg reds. Too much of everything for my tastes but that does not stop me from appreciating the style. This wine tasted from a half bottle.

Aromas of black fruits, boot polish, ouzo, mint and lashings of coconut oak. On the palate a big richly flavoured wine with blackberry, olive, aniseed and bitter chocolate. Tannic and dense. Lots of fruit. Lots of oak. Came together well with a good airing. Savoury leathery finish. A good example of Dead Arm.

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Aromas of lemongrass, fresh lemon and lime, spice and flowers. On the palate it is bursting with bright saliva sucking lemon/lime and spice flavours. Dry slatey and hugely flavoured with a bone dry finish of excellent length. This is just sensational. So good infact that I recommend not cellaring it at all. Just drink it now and enjoy the purity and intensity of this outstanding riesling.

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Quite a pleasing nose: red currants, tobacco leaf, coffee bean, cedar, a weird herbaceousness, smoke and cedar, tailing off with some meaty nuances. The palate shows red currants, tamarillo, acid, some stalks. Certainly a contrast to the Two Hands wines from earlier in the week, and perhaps my palate is way out of whack as a result, but I must say that it lacks some oomph, seems a bit underweight.  With time, it added some weight, but perhaps I am deluding myself.  On the elegant side of things, but I really do wonder if there is something not quite right with this bottle.

I put the rest of the bottle in the fridge and 2 days later (today) it was just dried tobacco leaves and dried herbs, but nothing on the palate but acid.  Into the cooking pot I’m afraid.

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I am not a huge fan of 2002 Barossa vintage shiraz , which may be seen by some as somewhat controversial, but think that Cabernet Sauvignon was the real winner. Saltram have released this wine to showcase the quality that can be achieved when everything goes right. The fruit is sourced from a single vineyard in the Dorrien sub-region of the Barossa Valley. French oak. Really like the label on this wine too.

Aromas of plum, dark berry, Turkish delight, fennel/mint and slightly resinous coffee bean oak. On the palate there are flavours of plum, rosewater and milk chocolate. It feels fresh, vibrant and quite cool with lots of fine grained ripe tannins and no bumps or holes along the way. Dry finish. I think this wine is a very typical of the vintage and as with most of them I would place vintage, region and then grape variety in descending order of importance. That is, the wine says more to me about 2002 and the Barossa than it does about Cabernet Sauvignon which is no bad thing at all really. A very lovely wine. Not so sure about the price but appreciate that they are trying to make a statement about Barossa Cabernet.

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Drop-dead gorgeous nose: apricot conserve, tropical fruit compote, Rose’s lime marmalade, unripe pineapple.  Sweetness on the palate, some acid and quite refined – dare I say it, elegant.  Good length with a drying sour finish. Unfortunately, the nose promises what the palate cannot deliver – it does lack concentration and I’m left with a somewhat unsatisfied feeling.

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Very different to the Jadot “Clos St.-Jacques” and the Rousseau “Chambertin” (see below) – not a pretty wine like the Jadot or a muscular and oaky one like the Rousseau. Initially showed some distracting bottle stink, but with time this receded and red fruits emerged, with some earthy notes and new leather – it seemed to be coming good. With more coaxing, the wine showed a core of dark cherry fruit, with traces of meaty animalé, hair and warm butter. It is a generously proportioned wine, not floral or pretty, that still skips across the tongue, albeit on the funkier side of things (but don’t let this put you off). All-in-all a very interesting wine in a Morey St.-Denis kind of way.

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Red with the faintest purple.  Pretty red fruits, earthy, generous and engaging.  The palate shows juicy red cherries and some spice – it is big and generous, sweet fruit, forward, light and bright. Strangely, there is also a trace of something metallic, almost like gunsmoke, perhaps lending it to appear a little harsh. With time, the wine broadens and loosens, it’s a kind of “come-and-get-it” wine, but still an impressive effort.

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Firstly a kind thank-you to Hugh for opening this one – an unexpected treat. It was decanted for 2 hours, but in hindsight, this was nowhere near enough. 

Initially very oaky, so it was shuffled off in to quarantine for another hour. With time, some smoky red fruits emerged, creamy oak but really locked up tight.  With more time, still big big oak, cloves and caramel. I think the wine is like an iceberg, a small part of its potential revealed, but underneath there is an immensity of promise unseen. At the end of the evening, six hours later it maybe just starting to express itself.

Now I know it’s a relatively easy call with a Rousseau Chambertin, but we are now firmly convinced – this wine needs a heap more time, 5 years minimum. You can open them early, at say 2 to 3 years of age, but they will close down eventually, and when they do it is game-over. So this is the last of the 02 Rousseau Grand Crus that we are going to open, promise.… Let this be a warning to you all… 92 points at the moment, but with the potential to go much higher much later.

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Decanted for 1 hour.  Light red in colour. Delightfully perfumed, with some minerality, and a raw masculine meatiness - almost like a cross-dresser.  Initially tight and a bit tough and lean on the palate, but with time, the palate expands and power comes through, revealing red racy currants, black cherries and more earthy minerals. It is not sweet or lush per se, but has an excellent tannin structure with firm acid and muscles to match.  It can be consumed now, but ideally needs a couple of more years in the cellar.

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