WTN: Compare and contrast - then and now

One of my favourite wine books has been Michael Broadbent's "Great Vintage Wine Book". I like the way he has several notes for the same wine. I keep notes too. Hundreds of notes are buried in notebooks and throughout my computer - note after note after note. So it's interesting to be able to taste a wine several years on from a previous tasting and compare what it was like then and what it is like now. I had the opportunity to taste some wines the other night and compare my old notes.

Yalumba Hand Picked Shiraz Viognier 2001 - tasted 21st July 2004
Seven per cent Viognier was co-fermented with Shiraz to fix the intense purple red of the deep, rich colour. Lovely aromatics of spicy lifted oak, red berries, rose petals and a hint of eucalypt pave the way for this thick dense wine layered with fine silky tannins, fruits of the forest, cherry, chocolate, mocha, liquorice and pepper. Mouthfilling, almost chewy, with good acidity, it is made with French oak which makes it so elegant and just a little atypical for Australia. 14% alc. Cork. NZ$38 release price.

Yalumba Hand Picked Eden Valley Shiraz Viognier 2001 - tasted 31 Oct 2007
Dense in colour, murky black but a fading red on the edges, this is a huge wine - big, rich, meaty and savoury with primary fruit now a distant memory. Sweetish, minty, with voluptuousness vanillin oak, succulent thick tannins and a lasting intensity of the flavour with juicy red and black fruits emerging at last with pepper and spice. Ready now. Matured for 18 months in French oak.

Conclusion: I wouldn't want to hold this Shiraz-Viognier any longer. The release tasting note said 4-5 years cellaring. That was about right. Drink up.

Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2001 - tasted 17 May 2006
Vibrant, deep glossy red. Concentrated cassis and blackberry on the nose then in the palate delicious mocha and tobacco overtones from the fleshy Shiraz, an underpinning of cassis and cherry fruit and firm earthy tannins. Mouth-sucking and moreish. A 60/40 blend. 20 months American and French oak hogsheads. Cork. NZ$40 on release.

Yalumba The Signature Cabernet Sauvignon Shiraz 2001 - tasted 31 Oct 2007
There's still a hint of crimson to the pool of deep red-black colour in the glass. On the nose it's young, tight and youthful with smoky oak and a hint of vitamin B then in the mouth it fills out with a bright yet concentrated cassis and cherry fruit sweetness with chocolate, smoke, earth, dried herbs, and a long succulent aftertaste with persistent length of flavour. A meaty wine and still quite primary, and with its tightly structured tannins, there is plenty of cellaring life ahead of it.

Conclusion: This wine, with its firm Cabernet Sauvignon backbone, will hold in there for some time to come. Tasting note on release said optimum 8-12 years from vintage. 8 years is 2009, just 14 months away. It will easily hit that mark.

Cheers,
Sue

Sue
Agree with you on Broadbent - a good read, with interesting ebb and flow to the image I have of him. I can see how some might call him pompous (I wouldn't) and eurocentric, but there's also great humility, humour and openness. A great writing style.


and a fine move posting such sequential notes - very happy to see more such postings!

regards

Ian

Hi Ian, are you back from Italy visit???

Hi Ian, are you back from Italy visit???

Yes, been back a couple of weeks. I do have notes to write up (not too many though - not one to whip the notebook out at the dinner table!). Very enjoyable time and even got some good walking in between Annunziata, La Morra and Barolo. Brought back some cheeses, salami, etc. which helps remind us of the trip.

regards

Ian

Bob - that's almost a record for going off topic.

Ian. Broadbent thought of as pompous? Didn't know that. He just strikes me as upper class English old school. I suppose that could be thought of as pompous. Still he set a good example for recording wine notes over time, even though they are quite succinct.

Bob - that's almost a record for going off topic.

Ian. Broadbent thought of as pompous? Didn't know that. He just strikes me as upper class English old school. I suppose that could be thought of as pompous. Still he set a good example for recording wine notes over time, even though they are quite succinct.

Sue
I'm sure I've seen it said a few times on 'that' forum, but there again it's not exactly civil at the best of times.

Do you subscribe to Jeremy Oliver's 'Onwine'? I've been tempted recently and one of the appeals is a belief that he has all his TN's for a particular wine available.

On a similar note, were you aware that Halliday's old site (winepros) is re-opening up his old notes? Another useful resource returns, though I'm guessing the man himself won't be too impressed.

p.s note the more subtle attempt at thread drift from me

regards

Ian

Hi Ian,
Do not subscribe to OnWine. But I also record successive notes for NZ wines on my own 'free to air' Wine of the Week website in the tasting notes section. My overseas wines are a bit more haphazard in their presentation. However, I don't usually give points or scores - just raves or non raves.

One thing I did learn from Broadbent was to date all my work.

Yes, saw on one of the Australian forums that that Winepros is now free for the archived material. Must go and read some of Len Evan's stuff, now that's it's available, to find out why he was so revered. Haven't seen much of his work except in books.

Cheers,
Sue

[David M. Bueker]

Sue,

That's one of the great things about having tasting notes archived either on a forum or in a system like CellarTracker. Sure we have our recollections of wines, but let's face it we have a lot of them, so it's good to get the memory jog, see how things are progressing (especially if we did any aging prognostications) & get a feel for the overall life arc of the wine.

Thanks for the perspective.

Sue,
That's one of the great things about having tasting notes archived either on a forum or in a system like CellarTracker. Sure we have our recollections of wines, but let's face it we have a lot of them, so it's good to get the memory jog, see how things are progressing (especially if we did any aging prognostications) & get a feel for the overall life arc of the wine.
Thanks for the perspective.

David, Have not used Cellar Tracker. Bit scared of something like this in case it goes belly up and everything gets lost.
My problem is that I have a lot of notes in notebooks that haven't been typed up and electronically archived. At least when they make it to the computer, a simple search finds them, whether on the WWW or in a word document somewhere in my computer. When they are only in the books, they could be in one of 20-plus notebooks, and where do I start looking? It's frustrating and getting them computerised is on one of my long ''to do" lists.

Sue
Your method serves Broadbent well and has done for 50+ years, so you're in good company.

If you have a fear of loss, then there may well be an upload/download facility for notes. There certainly is for people's wine inventories. That way you can take regular downloads to have a localised back-up.

I'm not sure if cellartracker guru Eric Le Vine has been around here in recent times, but might be worth dropping him a line and he may be able to help.

Just done a quick check of his forum & noticed this thread, which means he's got it on his agenda for bulk upload of notes.
http://www.cellartracker.com/forum/At_l ... 332/tm.htm

regards

Ian

Hi there, I haven't been to this board in a while but happened to notice this thread.

Bulk tasting note import has been going for about a year. You can read about it here: http://www.cellartracker.com/bulkfaq.asp