Greetings fellow wine lovers.
My wine drinking report for the month of May follows.
One wine stood out like a beacon in the night - mesh 2005, although the remnants of the Seppelt Rare muscat were almost as impressive, especially when the wine has been sitting opened for so long. I bought a case of mesh at release and managed to score another half a dozen at a reasonable price on the secondary market last year. A wondrous thing indeed. Oh, and I almost forgot, the 1991 St. Huberts special barrel cabernet was also top shelf!
We had a friend around for dinner a few night's back and we opened a bottle of Tyrrell's Cellar Reserve Semillon from 1999 - a vibrant, developing unoaked Hunter with incredible reserves of citrusy, nutty, toasty, honeyed and soapy fruit, wonderful counterbalancing acidity, terrific mouth feel and a powerful, cracker of a finish. 92 points with at least a decade of drinkability ahead.
Next I opened my last bottle of 1979 Chateau Trotanoy from Pomerol, Bordeaux. This particular bottle was singing a very old but sound swansong. Aged, almost tawny hues, earth- and leather-tinged blackcurrant, raspberry and licorice fruit combine with cedar, sandalwood and damp earth to produce articulate but ever-so-slightly fading qualities on both nose and palate with silky tannins and melted acidity nicely moulded on a smooth and well-delineated departure. 88 points. Drink yesterday.
Just for the hell of it, I discovered about 150ml of Seppelt GR113 Rare Muscat loitering on the top shelf of my wine library. It's been there for quite a long time, but, wow, was this fortified still in great form. Lavishly fruited with incredible reserves of spicy muscatels and Christmas cake-like complexities, a thick, viscous, mouth-staining palate, immaculate balancing astringency and a whopping long finish that fills the mouth, throat and gut with ravishing lushness and sheer class. Astonishingly brilliant wine. 95 points.
Another very good, no, excellent bottle of Coonawarra Cabernet last night - Richmond Grove 1998.
Colour is advancing but holds a decent ruby/red core with some bricking in the edges. Choco-berry nose with some cedary/earthy complexity underneath. Everything in its place on a relatively lively palate with an admirable mix of herb-tinged chocolaty fruit with solid acid backbone and some resolute tannins poking through right at the end. Nicely mature, very competent wine without anything too memorable or thrilling to wax lyrical about. 88 points.
The Keira Jazz Band had a “blow” at my place today and we all enjoyed a rather good home made minestrone soup for lunch accompanied thereafter with a 1988 John Riddoch Cabernet. The wine is still drinking very well, but never has, or will be, a great Riddoch. It is only medium-bodied and displays very attractive mature leafy and cedary scents and flavours with additional input from some leathery blackcurrant fruit, roasted herbs and warm earth. With a little remaining acidity and very tame tannins, this wine needs to be drunk in the next year or two. 89 points.
Others worth crowing about -
May 10th, 2009
The St. Huberts Barrel Select Cabernet Sauvignon from 1991 was utterly stupendous - crammed with the most amazingly opulent blakcurrant and blackberry fruit with ample backing from cedary, savoury French oak amongst a zillion other good things going on including awesome structure and a wonderful departure. Brilliant wine that will keep for some years yet. 95 points.
Almost as good and equally impressively “sweet-fruited” was the magnificent 1994 Jim Barry The Armagh. Colour advancing but the wine is right in the groove with the finest, laciest but still reasonably powerful, tannin structure needing a few more years to fully resolve. Otherwise the US oak was not exactly to my taste, but objectively, the wine was outstanding with a haunting chocolaty character augmenting the sensational berried fruit and worthy of 93+ points. Drink now-2019.
Lastly, Dominique Laurent’s 1996 Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru Les Millandes was full of earthy pinot sap, cranberry, red currant, bing cherry and bitter plums as well as plenty of savoury oak, has plenty of time to go, although drinking extremely well today. The acidity was a little spiky at first but after a half hour or so, dissipated sufficiently and melded nicely with the excellent fine but persistent tannins. Exemplary line and length here. 90 points. Drink now-2016.
Mount Horrocks Clare Valley Riesling 2002
May 13th, 2009 | Category: Clare Valley, Riesling
Displaying a most attractive youthful luminescent straw green colour, this outstanding example of Clare riesling opens with a fascinating array of musky scents of lime juice, ripe Josephine pear, crisp new season green apples, lightly-browned toast, minerals and honey with the merest hint of petroleum. In the mouth, the wine raises the bar another few notches delivering a precise and focussed attack, bucket loads of fresh fruit aka the nose, incredibly good mouth feel, with beautifully-judged minerally acids providing a crisp and invigorating finish of considerable duration. A marvelous expression of this country’s best region for this variety that only requires another few years to be at the peak of its powers and should last to the end of the next decade if well-stored. Secured by a screw cap and weighs in at 13% A/V. 93 points.
mesh riesling 2005
May 22nd, 2009 | Category: Eden Valley, Riesling
My first bottle and what a wine!
I’d rate this up there with the very best young Australian Riesling’s I’ve encountered over the past 25 years. The colour is nigh-on perfect - luminescent, almost glowing straw green with an amazing flash of white gold. Likewise, the nose is nigh-on perfect - tight, jam-packed with juicy freshly-squeezed limes, crushed river pebbles and minerals wrapped in a floral shroud suggesting orange blossoms. The palate is perfect - literally bursting with pristine lime and mineral flavours, a wealth of natural, refreshing acidity, terrific line, superb balance, impeccable manners and a sublime finish of enormous presence and quite amazing caliber. Drink now - the cows come home. Developing magnificently, this classic dry riesling will rival the 1990 Leo Buring Eden Valley Leonay as one of the truly great aromatic white wine’s this country has produced. 97 points, I kid you not! 13.0% A/V and sealed with a screw cap.