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On 17 Jan 2004 16:03:29 GMT, (Bill Spohn) wrote:

>My turn to host a dinner tasting last night, theme: Australia.

Great to read about winesI know. Thanks Bill...... great summary.
>
>First up were a couple of whites, with clams.
>
>1998 Yalumba Barossa Semillon - I picked this up at the Vancouver wine festival
>a few years ago because I thought it was a Semillon with aspirations to be a
>Chablis. It showed lemon and quite a bit of mineral in the nose, and was smooth
>and quite rich in the mouth, definitely a bit more in the French style than
>your typical Semillon.
>
>1998 Tyrells Vat 47 Pinot Chardonnay (Hunter Valley) - bought at the same
>festival (not by me), this was very nice too, although not as good a match with
>clams. Sweet rich nose, fairly typical oaked chard, lower acidity, and my only
>criticism was that the fruit ended early and the acidity carried on, so that
>while it wasn't all that high in midpalate, the wine suddenly seemed to be high
>in acid because that was all that was left to taste.

HV Sems are my fave whites..... but not that young. :>)
>
>1985 Lake's Folly Cabernet - I asked every one to predict where their wines,
>tasted blind, should come in the tasting order, and we got it almost perfect
>last night. This mature wine was appropriately offered up first. An excellent
>Bordeaux style of nose, primarily cabernet, the wine completely mature and just
>lovely. Those who left some in their glass found that it developed an
>attractive tar component in the nose with a bit of time.
>
>1997 Mt. Langi Ghiran Shiraz - this wine had a nose that was very much Northern
>Rhone, and it had the metallic note you get in Cote Rotie, (although none of
>the violets). It had bright fruit and was sweeter than the European version
>would be, but all in all a creditable Shiraz done in the restrained style.
>There are days when you want an ooze monster (see the last wines in this
>tasting) and there are days when this style is much easier to take!

The 98 is/was a monster. Have you ever had the chance to taste their
limited release "Chook Block" Shiraz?
>
>1995 Eileen Hardy Shiraz - I first tasted this wine when Bill Hardy came to
>town about 6 years ago and presented a short vertical. It is (based on my old
>notes) 50% Padthaway, 50% McLaren Vale fruit. When young, this wine had always
>shown the more typical mint nose, but last night it was big time dill all the
>way. Medium bodied (I think you have to read that in the context of what we
>were tasting) and still a fair bit of tannin. On palate, lush cherry liqueur
>fruit and yet more oak (a bit much perhaps). This wine could use more time.
>
>1995 Penfolds Bin 389 Cabernet - Shiraz - good nose with some slight Bordeaux
>elements but also mint, medium body, almost elegant, good length. Hey - I can
>put up the 90, 92, 93, 94, and 95 - anyone
>want to continue the run and do a vertical tasting?
lol....I have 96 - 2000. The 2000 has the luxury of the Bin 707
Cabernet fruit blended, as thier was no 707 released that year. It
makes it so much more approachable as a young wine, yet still has good
legs to age with.
>
>1999 Cape Mentelle Zinfandel - someone had to pull this one out, and as he
>expected, it flummoxed us. Dark wine with a eucalyptus nose and lots of sweet
>fruit, a bit hot. The fruit melded well with the tannins and it had good
>balance, but as was the case with the 1996 we had, there was no varietal clue
>whatsoever.
>
>1999 Chestnut Grove Merlot Manjimup (Western Australia) - a real hard one - a
>varietal not exactly in the top 5 when you think of Oz, and a producer none of
>us were familiar with. The nose was bitter chocolate (the only indicator of
>varietal?) and the wine was medium bodied, well integrated, admirable length,
>and not very merlot-like, damn it!

They make a lovely Verdelho too. Not my type of wine, yet I find it
very palatible.
>
>1997 Fox Creek Reserve Shiraz - my friend and I had set this next pair up, so
>we didn't guess the wines. I have seen several reports of the doom and gloom
>variety recently about these wines, and the only way to know if they were true
>was to start pulling corks. The 97 was dark (like that needed saying!), and a
>rubber nose that segued into tar and licorice as it opened a bit. A big wine,
>noticeably hot, but it drinks quite well, with a sweet fruit finish, the
>tannins not hitting until a half beat later. I have no reservations about this
>wine - I tasted it on release, and while it has lost some of the baby fat
>fruitiness, it has gained more in terms of increased complexity and by becoming
>more accessible. A long life ahead would be my bet, and my case will stay
>buried for another few years.
>
>1998 Fox Creek Reserve Shiraz - we figured that even though this pairing
>constitutes the sort of infanticide I normally criticise (all the while
>greedily sucking up other's notes), in this case it was merited. This wine was
>quite different and showed much less development. The nose was a bit sweeter
>than the 97, and the middle had a good chalky mouth feel to it. The wine was
>even darker, and the flavours of primal fruit were completely undifferentiated.
>I have no idea how long this monolithic Shiraz will need to start showing its
>stuff, but it isn't going to be next year! I find the naysaying relating to
>these wines a bit perplexing. I guess there are people that value 'fruit above
>all', and I wonder whether they prefer to drink their vintage Port at 5 years
>old, and think those of us that leave them 20 or more are daft. From my point
>of view, these wines, tasted when they first hit our market a few years ago,
>have lost nothing that would make me run about doing my Chicken Little
>impression. From where I sit, the sky is NOT falling.
>
>1996 Thomas Hardy Cabernet - I first guessed it might be a 1998, and when told
>no, identified it as a 1996. This wine was quite appropriately left until the
>end, as impenetrable as the Fox Creeks had been, this was perhaps even
>'thicker'. Very dark, and now showing some complexity, it had a cassis nose
>with a fair bit of vanilla and lots of mint. Well structured, this wine needs
>another 5 years to mellow out. Very nice. Both this and the Foxes use American
>oak when many winemakers have shifted to French, but they make good examples of
>wines where American oak works well. I'd love to taste any of them done with
>French - I wonder if the winemakers have done any experimental barrels?
>
>We tasted these wines with a Provencal beef stew (oragne juice and rind with
>black olives etc), and then continued the last 3 with cheese, and finally
>opened the Port
>
>1980 Offley Boa Vista - I had been fooled by the Grahams of the same vintage
>only the month before, so thought I'd be able to do the same. I suppose I gave
>it away when I responded to guesses in the early 80s by telling them they were
>'Offley close". This wine nearly witnessed a sad end for our hero. I had a
>general idea of where it was in the cellar (all Ports are on the bottom as they
>don't need to be readily accessible), but since it was placed in that
>repository my cellar had grown, rather like a river, where sedimentary deposits
>consisting of newer cases end up concealing earlier deposits. I had removed a
>tier (or is that rank or file?) of cases in front of where I estimated the
>Offley to be (I was one row over) and was lying prone on the floor, reaching in
>behind the stacks of cases to try and dislodge the Offley, when the cases on
>either side of the ones I'd removed started collapsing, and with bottles
>raining about my ears and onto my head (it was fortunate that the floor is
>carpeted and that I am large and soft, but even so it was only BC wine....). I
>tried to get up, but my not inconsiderable bulk, the looming cases and an old
>racquetball knee injury had me pinned, and it was difficult to move under the
>cases without pushing on the wood racks with the good stuff in them. I had
>visions of my wife coming home and wondering where I was, being unable to hear
>my increasingly faint and plaintive cries (I was also unable to reach a
>corkscrew to fortify myself), but in the end I managed to emerge with Offley in
>hand and the damage limited to dignity, which with no one to witness is quickly
>healed. Which is a lot about the retrieval of the Port, but nothing about the
>wine itself. It was hot. It was bloody hot. It was so hot, that this was its
>defining characteristic. The colour was starting to 'give' a bit, but there
>were no real clues for people, because the fruit which was there was adequate,
>but was quickly subsumed in the alcohol, which obliterated everything else. We
>all agreed that we wouldn't expect to guess either year or wine, so we went on
>to the bonus round.

LOL... great yarn !!!

<snip>

Enjoyed your forthright notes Bill......appreciated. :>)

Regards
Swooper