WTN: Napa Cab, Tower Estate, Tyrell's Semillon

Last night at wine styles

Farella Park Cabernet Sauvignon 2004. From the estate due east of the City of Napa, butting up against the Mount George range (3rd Avenue North, for those familiar with the area). This cab showed quite well last night. Surprisingly herbaceous and a little bell pepper for a 2004 vintage wine. Refreshing acidity, good black fruit, nice structure, reasonable (14.2%) alcohol. Very nice-and not outrageous for a boutique Napa producer ($38). I would buy this.

1996 Tyrell's Vat Number 1 Semillon Hunter Valley, Australia. This is a first on several fronts for me-first white wine with 12 years of age, first varietal Semillon bottling, and first Hunter Valley/New South Wales wine. Cork was in awful shape-some evidence of past leakage/intrusion, extremely dry and crumbly, disintegrated while we were trying to open it. No foul fungal growth on the bottom of the cork, howevever, and the wine did not seem "spoiled" at all, except by the tiny fragments of disintegrated cork Anyway-an amazing golden color. Nose was citrusy, had plenty of that aged/oxidized caramelish "Chardonnay" character I might expect. Palate was very interesting-strong lemon and apricot flavors. Ton of acidity that added a nice crispness and refreshing character to the wine. Only 10.6% alcohol.

We were not sure about this wine, yet we finished the bottle. Maybe more of an intellectual enjoyment than simple pure pleasure "enjoyment." Given the cork situation, I would be nervous about buying more. I sourced this at Corti Brothers in Sacramento.

2001 Tower Estate Shiraz-Hunter Valley. Now this was a nice discovery. Not as complex or rich as my other favorite Aussie red, the Tim Adams 1999 Aberfeldy, but still very elegant and even austere. I almost thought the black fruit side of Saint Joseph, like a Gonon? cork here was in excellent condition with no intrusion or drying out. Nice meaty, earthy nose with blackberry fruit, but not particularly jammy in any way. Palate was quite lean, medium body, low alcohol (13.5%!). Good black and red fruit and that delicious savory/meaty notes-am I also tasting the sacred "minerality" herre? I think so! Only complaint is that this may be near the end of the drinking window or even slightly declining-just a touch of oxidation hidden way in the back of the palate. I would buy more of this for short term drinking-very impressive! Sourced at Corti Brothers.

Great to see some love for Hunter Valley wine here!

Tower Estate's a fine producer - makes some very solid, classical Hunter Shiraz. Those wines are really hard to get a hold of outside Aus (heck, even outside NSW for that matter), but are really enjoyable at the price - I love the tarry, meaty character the best ones have.

Tyrrell's Vat 1 is an Aussie classic, glad your bottle showed well. The unfortunate thing is that the wine's built for the long haul (I've heard of 20+ year old Vat 1 Semillons) but the cork situation there makes most of them a real lottery. I've had three bottles of older Vat 1 in my life (the 96 twice, the 98 once) - in one case one of them was massively TCAed, the other two were prematurely oxidised to hell and back with really horrible corks. [It's one of the reasons why I don't buy Tyrrell's and grab Brokenwood or Tulloch's Semillon instead when I see them on the market, as those wines are under Stelvin.]

I wonder if that's market-driven, Salil (Tyrrell's under cork)? Certainly from the 2004 vintage, Vat 1 was sold in Australia only under screwcap, to my knowledge (and from my experience). In fact, allt heir whites went under the screwcap for 2004, and nearly all the reds followed the year after.
96 was a good year for Vat 1, but of course the corks are a lottery - although no more than with Brokenwoods of the same vintage, for instance.
cheers,
Graeme

That's great to know, Graeme. Although the thing's probably not market driven - the only recent vintages of Vat 1 I've seen around shelves outside Aus are 99, 01 and 02, so we're probably still a couple of years away from seeing the screwcapped versions. Looking forward to those (until then I've got a few bottles of '05 Brokenwood Sem sitting about that I'm looking forward to unscrewing).