Norm Page brought this monster, Shirvington Shiraz, to Scot McLernon's "Down Under" tasting in Aptos, CA. This bottling is what Aussie Shiraz is all about: lots of ripe fruit, lots of new oak, and high alcohol. Perfect for grilled red meat or hearty foods (i.e. spicy beef soup) that need a strong wine to stand up against.
Rich Johnson brought this $45 Mitolo Shiraz to Scot McLernon's "Down Under" tasting, and it raised some eyebrows for the wrong reasons. It was finished in French oak, which is rare for Aussie Shiraz (they overwhelmingly prefer American oak, which adds far more vanilla to the mix), but the fruit was picked at an overripe stage, which results in a very jammy -- almost syrupy -- final wine. The intentions were good, but the winemakers were unwilling to deliver a differentiated product to a marketplace that wants BIG shiraz...
This wonderful blend from the mountains of Chile is one that you won't find in North America: Cabernet Sauvignon, Carmenere, and Cabernet Franc. Almaviva is part of the Baron de Philippe Rothschild empire. The Carmenere adds a complexity that is alien to most American drinkers -- it tends to make the wine less openly tannic and heavy than the Napa Cabs we're used to here in California. This is a multifaceted wine that got several votes for "wine of the night"... It's not cheap, but Rich Johnson doesn't tend to bring mid-priced wines to our tastings (bless him)!
Our friend John Durham has a deep wine cellar, and he also pulls out fun bottles -- like this pair of well-aged Penfolds 707s. The '98 is still fine, showing all the appealing characteristics of what I call "secondary maturity" -- red rose petals, a super-soft presentation on the palate -- stuff you don't get at all with young wines... The '96 on the other hand was too far past it's peak to really be evaluated; the oak was almost fully dominating with little traces of fruit left. This is one of Australia's top-notch Cabernet Sauvignon bottlings, so the lesson to me here is that you need to drink these in the first 10 years.
Mike Parker is the man who turned me onto the wines of the Okanagan Valley and I will be grateful to him for the rest of my life -- provided that I can continue to get rare bottles like this Blue Mountain Chardonnay from him (since they're virtually impossible to find in the U.S.)! Honeysuckle fruit and high acidity make this a very special Chardonnay that is markedly different than the typical Napa versions...
I know, I know -- "If you know so much about wine, then why are you writing about a Robert Mondavi bottling that is available by the million?". The answer is simply that you need go-to wines for any mundane occassion, like pizza on a Monday at home -- and the picture below shows several of my favorite things: a homemade, whole-wheat-garlic-crusted pizza margharita with freshly diced pepperoncini and a nice glass of red wine... Would it have been better with some high-end wine -- maybe, but the pepperoncini are powerful and tend to wipe out subtle flavors, and this cab is a perfect match because it stands up to the spice and still delivers plenty of flavor -- Mondavi and BV are my "baselines" for Napa Cab (if the wine is worse than their Napa blends, it's not worth buying, if it's better -- it's damn good!)...
One of my favorite small producers in Sonoma County is Martin Family Vineyards. This fruit was grown at over 1,300 feet which usually adds some nuance to the fruit, but the 2003 vintage was a difficult one and like the fruit on the valley floor, much of it became overripe at the end of the season. The results of overripe (higher brix -- the sugar level of the fruit when picked) fruit are jammy flavors and high alcohol (14.7% here, but it tastes higher).
You have to really know your Bordeaux blends to appreciate Petit Verdot (it is used sparingly, as are Malbec and Cabernet Franc). It is super-rare in the United States, but it's no surprise that Heitz -- which has produced some of the finest Napa Cabs for the past three decades -- is growing the varietal and even doing single varietal bottlings! I purchased this bottle at their tasting room/retail shop in Napa (which is disconnected from the winery and Heitz's vineyard properties).
The wine is very smooth, with focused black plum fruit and lip-smacking acidity. It's easy to imagine why blending this with Cab and/or Merlot would produce a more complex and interesting finished wine...
After five years in the cellar, this Lattanzio bottling from the wonderful 2005 vintage is drinking extremely well. The acids are still very high and the oak interplay with the black cherry and bing cherry fruit is completmentary (instead of dominating). This wine will blind-taste well against many of the best-known pinots made with Russian River Valley fruit in 2005. I like the bootstrapped efforts of the proprietors, and am happy that they've received so much praise for their work. This wine is mostly mailing-list only -- good luck finding a bottle!
Eric Porres has been smuggling these gems from Streicker into the United States (and our tastings) for years, and this one is especially interesting for a few reasons:
1) It shuns the Australian word for the varietal ("Shiraz").
2) It's unavailable in the United States (as of this writing).
3) It tastes like no other Syrah/Shiraz I've ever had from Australia.
Unlike the vast majority of Australian producers, Streicker uses French oak instead of American -- which eliminates the vanilla flavor that is often associated with Shiraz.
This wine is produced from vines that are 10 years old, and the young fruit is ripe but not overripe -- which lets the nuances express themselves (and they are considerable). My favorite is what I call "blue fruit", which I find to be one of the most rare flavors in red wine. Across all red wines, fruit flavors are typically associated colors, i.e.:
- Red Fruit = Cherry, Bing Cherry, Plum, Strawberry, Raspberry
- Black Fruit = Blackberry, Black Cherry, Boysenberry, Cassis
- Purple Fruit = a mix of red and black flavors
- Blue Fruit = Blueberry, Violet
The other producer that comes to mind when I think of blue fruit is Domaine de la Romanee Conti; nice company to be in!
Recent Comments