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

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.

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!

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?


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!

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.

Beaulieu Vineyards Muscat de Frontignan - I picked this up sometime around 1980
when I was racing old sports cars at Laguna Seca, and would load up on wine on
the way home. I don't believe they make it any more - it is fortified (18%) and
matured in French and American oak. It comes in a squat sort of bottle, and
when poured it was light brown, almost like a very old red wine or a Madeira
and was redolent of the Muscat grape. Interesting.