Irvine Springhill Merlot 2004

Yay, a delicious and quite sophisticated merlot.

On opening, a bit of a fruit bomb, but it quickly reveals its full spectrum of flavours. A lovely leafy note frames this wine's attractive (if rather simple) red fruit flavours. On the nose, there are intermingled aromas of fruit, leaf and cigar box. Green olives are added to the mix in the mouth, and there's lovely acidity to tingle the edges of the tongue, as well as ripe tannins to dry the finish. It's a medium bodied wine that shows good balance and structure. Its fruit flavours a bit simple and flat, though, and I would not describe this wine as one of great depth or complexity. However, for the $16 I paid, you'd be hard pressed to find a wine of this quality.

Leo Buring Clare Valley Riesling 2007

A bit of fresh riesling lovin' last night.

When I was in the Clare Valley during vintage time earlier this year, most of the wineries were open about the difficulties of the 2007 vintage, so I've been curious to try the resultant wines.

Here we have a sprightly young riesling, which opens in lively fashion with estery "fake fruit" smells, sort of a sherbet character. In the mouth, the acidity is present but not at all steely or hard, and the wine's flavours are generous. There's some spritzy CO2 as well. After about an hour, the sherbet overtones disappeared and revealed more classic lime/lemon juice flavours, especially in the mouth.

If a riesling could be a "fruit bomb," this would be one. It's fun to drink and quite flavoursome, "like soft drink" as the other half commented at one point. The flip side of this is that it seems to lack structure and elegance, being somewhat flabby for a young Clare riesling. Its flavours are also a bit simple and one-dimensional. I would not try cellaring this one.

Update: I "found" a glass of this the next day that had been sitting out overnight. Of course I had to taste it. It was actually in quite good shape, and for kicks I left it all day and came back to it in the evening, whereupon it was still holding its structure and fresh flavours. Perhaps it won't fall apart as quickly as I thought.

Two sangioveses

Gabbiano Chianti Classico 2004

I haven't had that many Italian wines but, of those I've tried, I've been struck by their austere structure that practically demands food.

At first, we tasted this wine without food. Colour-wise, it is pretty, not overly dense, quite ruby-like. The nose displays attractive, moderately complex aromas of lightly floral (rose-like) scents, combined with hints of lemon rind. First sips showed a wine of mid-weight, with savoury fruit towards the middle palate that is slightly raisin-like in character. The mouthfeel is dominated by acidity and rustic, rather chunky tannins that dry the finish most puckeringly.

At this point, we started to eat our osso bucco and the wine transformed into a much smoother, more sensual experience. The tannins and acidity melted and the wine's flavours expressed themselves more luxuriously. I must say, it's not the most complex wine I've ever had, but its savouriness is delicious and its character refreshingly un-Australian. I liked it.

Coriole Sangiovese 2006

By contrast, this wine trades savouriness and structure for upfront fruit and opulence. Considerable density of colour. Like the Italian number, this wine displays pretty florals on the nose, but the effect is more like bubble gum than valentine's day, and I was reminded a little of petit verdot. The palate has more in common with the Chianti Classico than the nose, especially with regard to the firm acidity that runs through the wine's line. Tannins kick in right towards the end of the palate and are lightly drying, though not a major presence by any means. It is beautifully made and an excellent value (picked it up for around the $17 mark).

This wine's fruit has a roundness and generosity that is very Australian. It's interesting to contemplate this McLaren Vale expression of sangiovese in contrast to the Italian style. I guess I'm tempted to hold up the Chianti Classico as a benchmark of sorts, but then I look at this Coriole and, with each sip, enjoy its flavour profile very much. I wonder if it's productive to expect Australian sangiovese to emulate the original style, and instead if it's wiser to have regard to the quality of the fruit and winemaking on its own terms.

Yalumba Wild Ferment Chardonnay 2005

This was at 1st Choice for around the $16 mark and, having read some some good notices on the 'net, I picked it up to try. I've been getting into chardonnay lately and remember loving the Yalumba FDW[7c] at cellar door.

What an awesome wine. The aromas on this wine are super funky, and incredibly complex for this price point. Aside from the funky yeasty characters, there's also vanilla and clean fruit smells. The palate continues this theme consistently, the clarity of the fruit and smooth mouthfeel a highlight. Lovely creaminess too. Great balance.

You'd be hard pressed to find a more interesting chardonnay at this price. A repeat buy for sure.

Giesen Pinot Noir 2004

The standard Giesen Sauvignon Blanc has been a standby for us for some time. It's a pretty blatant expression of New Zealand sauvignon blanc, but when you're in the mood for something fragrant and juicy, it's hard to go past, especially at the price. I spotted the Giesen Pinot Noir the other day and decided to give it a whirl in hopes that it would match its white sibling and be a cheap, reliable choice. This 2004 edition is a blend of Marlborough and Canterbury grapes.

On opening, there's a nice burst of stalky aromatics. I know stalks are a bit love or hate in pinot noir, but I happen to like some stalk and so eagerly sniffed some more and got... more stalk. In the mouth, there's (surprise) more stalk, which would be fine except that when the stalk ends (about mid-palate) there's nothing left. The wine is very fruit-light, and I couldn't detect more than a hint of red fruit lurking in there.

We finished half the bottle and left the other half overnight. I've just retasted the wine this evening and the stalk has almost entirely blown off, leaving the wine essentially flavourless. There's a greenish sourness towards the back palate, but otherwise nothing of note.

Very disappointing.

Vasse Felix Shiraz 2004

I remember having this wine at a tasting a few years ago and really liking it. I just opened the 2004 to have with roast beef.

I love how expressive this wine is on the nose -- not at all like the Voyager Estate Shiraz we had a little while ago. Deep black berry fruits mingle alongside herbal edges and toasty, cedary oak. It's a big nose, but not over the top or clumsy. On the palate, there's a bit of tingly fruit sweetness that livens an otherwise dark flavour profile, with more black fruits and a lot of oak. The wine's mouthfeel is thick and chunky, but not clumsy due to its rather sophisticated slipperiness. Very fine tannins provide a drying finish that could do with a few years to mellow out a bit.

For my taste, the wine's showing too much oak at present. But this wine isn't a quaffing wine and one has to accept that, in its youth, it may not drink easily. A lovely full-bodied red wine to sip and think about.

d'Arenberg The Money Spider Roussanne 2004

Something a bit different here, a straight roussanne from the McLaren Vale. As usual for d'Arenberg, the wine has a funky name and attractive label. I must admit, I've never had much luck with d'Arenberg wines, generally. Of course, I've not tasted the whole range, but in the past, my impression has usually ranged from slight to total disappointment.

I had a bit of trouble coming to grips with this wine, perhaps because I'm not hugely familiar with roussanne as a grape but also because I found the style of this wine a little broad and indistinct. The nose offers up a range of muted white stone and lightly tropical fruits, attractive enough, certainly inviting of a sip. In the mouth, I was a bit taken aback initially by the wine's broad, unfocussed mouthfeel, although at the same time attracted by its upfront flavour. There seems to be a fair whack of residual sugar in there, and when you combine this with noticeable phenolics and fairly rough acidity, you get a wine that is mouthfilling and generous, but also unsophisticated and coarse. The fruits become a bit more tropical in the mouth -- I was reminded of tinned pineapple -- and there's no shortage of flavour. I must say, the wine did go well with the chicken/tomato/olive pasta dish we had last night, I think because the wine's body and sugar levels were a good complement to the food's robust, rustic flavours.

At the end of the day, though, there's still a quarter of a bottle left. If you're bored with the "usual" Australian wine styles, this one could be the break you need.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2005

I bought a bottle of this the other day, with a view to determining whether it would be worth putting a few in the cellar. I already have a few 2003s and 2004s tucked away.

This wine just screams Coonawarra cabernet. It opens with that dust-on-leaf note that will be very familiar to anyone who has had a few cabernets from this region. It's funny how familiar, identifiably regional wine smells can be comforting. I find the same thing with Hunter semillon. Anyway, the nose continues with a clear, structured line of flavours, from the dust/leaf through to mulberries, aniseed, menthol and vanilla. The wine's line and flavour profile continues through to the palate in a consistent manner. What's evident in the mouth is the fruit's sweet ripeness, although you could hardly call it a fruit bomb. Instead, the mulberry-like fruit glows brightly within a tight structure of leafiness, savoury spices and oak. Tannins and acid are present, showing the enthusiasm of youth, but well balanced.

It's actually drinking quite well now but the wine seems designed to improve with age. I would hope the rawness of each flavour will mellow and the components further integrate with some extra time in bottle. I think I'll get some to cellar.

Kilikanoon Medley Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre 2002

It's a wet, windy night outside, and the boat's rocking a lot more than usual. The perfect night for a generous, warming red wine.

We decided to open this Kilikanoon number, and it turned out to be the perfect selection. It's got this delicious blackberry bush nose, alongside a fair hit of oak-derived vanilla and spice. A little bit of VA enhances the generosity and warmth of the nose. In the mouth, this wine is smooth and full bodied, with a fruit sweet mid palate that leads to a smoothly tannic, toasty vanilla finish. This is not a hugely sophisticated wine, but it's got an attractive spectrum of flavours on display, and it's so giving, flavoursome and warm, it's hard not to love, especially on a stormy night.

Guigal Cotes du Rhone 2003

Really nice wine and a great, cost-effective alternative to mid-level Australian red wines.

Quite an expressive nose of primarily savoury notes (dried herbs and bacon, with some more feral smells hovering at the edges), with brooding black fruits in the background providing weight. On the palate, this wine was initially almost all tannins, very fine and ripe, but overwhelming. After a little while in the glass, this wine showed good balance between its savoury notes, very ripe red and black fruits (almost jammy) and fine tannins. It's nice to drink a cheap wine that displays its primarily savoury profile with pride, rather than shoving slutty ripe fruit to the forefront.

I'd like to see this again wine in a few years' time.

Seppelt Jaluka Chardonnay 2006

I enjoyed the 2005 vintage of this wine and have, consequently, been looking forward to the release of the 2006. I picked up a bottle on the weekend and eagerly cracked the Stelvin cap last night.

Like the 2005, this wine is at the tight, minerally end of the chardonnay style spectrum. Initially, the nose was quite dumb and I had to work hard to get much out of it. An hour or so in glass helped the wine to open up and deliver tight, shimmery aromas of honeydew melon and creamy vanilla. The palate is where the action lies with this wine, at the moment anyway. This is because the acidity is exceptionally tight and focused, and quite "sizzly" in character. In fact, the quality of the acidity reminded me of the 2005 Seppelt Drumborg Riesling, though perhaps not showing such dominance in the Jaluka, perhaps due to the chardonnay's greater body and weight. In terms of flavour profile, this wine displays fine, tight citrus and melon fruit alongside vanilla cream and roasted nuts, with a spicy oak backdrop. But it's all so tight at the moment, the wine really needs a bit of time to relax and let its flavours express themselves more fully.

I have a few 2005s in the cellar and, on the basis of last night's tasting of the 2006, I'm tempted to get a few of those too. I think, overall, I prefer the 2006. Although very similar wines, the 2006 seems to display an extra edge of intensity, flavour balance and elegance of structure. We had this wine with a creamy pasta dish, and the combination worked well.

Brown Brothers Merlot 2004

The quest for cheap, good red quaffers continues.

I've never drunk huge amounts of merlot before embarking on my value red quest, and the thing that's interesting about merlot, especially at this end of the market, is the enormous variability in style. You get everything from overly-sweet fruit bombs with no structure to characterless "dry red" wines to more structured attempts at elegance and mid-weight.

This Brown Brothers wine is of medium weight, with attractive red fruit framed by very slightly savoury edges. It's not overly structured, although acidity and tannins do a good enough job of framing and supporting the wine's line, and there are no undue peaks or troughs in the wine's flow from front to back palate. The overall impression of this wine, though, is one of dilution, lacking as it does in any real intensity of flavour. This means that, whilst it was an inoffensive partner to the pork chops we had last night, it didn't really add or detract in any way. It is, however, a sound wine and is well balanced. Its flavours are pretty and moreish, and the wine presents as totally dry, without any hint of confected fruit flavour. I just wish there had been more to it.

Jimbour Station Verdelho 2005

My first Queensland wine, from the Darling Downs region. I figured since I now live in Brisbane, I should acquaint myself with the local product.

Unfortunately, this wine was almost undrinkable. It displays coarse, chalky phenolics that fatten the front palate but create an unpleasantly bitter finish. This, combined with obvious alcohol heat, prevents much fruit flavour from emerging. The only flavours I could detect were a hint of melon (honeydew/rockmelon) on the palate. The phenolics did soften a bit with food and a warmer temperature, but I still wasn't getting much out of the wine from a primary fruit perspective. Amazingly for our household, we drank less than half the bottle.

Very disappointing, especially as it's not cheap (about $16 from the local bottle shop) compared to other, reliable verdelhos (eg Tulloch).

I might try some wines from the Granite Belt region next time.

Tyrrell's Lost Block Merlot 2006

I'm a bit of a Tyrrell's fan, and my cellar is well stocked with Vat 1s and 9s (amongst others). I also have a few bottles of both vintages (so far) of the 4 Acres Shiraz. As an aside, I shared a bottle of the 2005 earlier this year with some erudite American wine friends and it floored us all, even when tasted alongside many exotic wines from around the world. Such perfume, acidity, elegance and structure. Hunter Shiraz indeed.

The Lost Block Merlot, however, is a rather different proposition. I was at the local bottlo last night, looking for something cheap and cheerful, and out jumped this wine, complete with a "special" tag underneath the row of bottles. So I grabbed it, figuring it would probably be well made at least.

And it is that. I will somewhat sheepishly admit that I guzzled this wine without so much as a second thought, and the wine participated willingly in my endeavour. Only towards the end of the (ostensibly shared) bottle did I tire of the wine's rather confected, overly intense mid and back palate sweetness. Otherwise, it's not a bad quaffer. It has some nice black olive and tobacco notes, and enough acidity to prop the wine up and prevent it from feeling completely flabby. But there's not a hell of a lot of structure here, nor is there much balance, the wine tipped as it is so far into the sweet fruit spectrum at the expense of almost everything else. I don't know if there's a whack of residual sugar here or whether it's just the fruit -- either way, it does become cloying after a couple of glasses, and you'd want to be eating something that balanced this out (pizza perhaps). I had it with a chicken dish that contained tomato and silverbeet but perhaps not enough strength of flavour, acidity and weight to keep the wine under control.

When next selecting a cheap quaffing red, I will probably not revisit this wine. A couple of wines tasted recently, the Mount Pleasant Phillip 2003 and the Wirra Wirra Scrubby Rise Red 2006, were both much more satisfying cheapies.

Clonakilla Viognier 2005

And I don't even like straight viogniers.

When I tasted this wine at cellar door, I knew it was pretty special, although it's hard to evaluate a wine this good during a brief tasting. I bought a few bottles and the first, shared with my vinous mates from (at that time) Seattle, confirmed the initial impressions. I'm having my second bottle tonight.

The thing with this wine is that it manages to avoid any hint of broadness or vulgarity, despite the inclinations of viognier as a grape. Instead, it's a full, intense, complex white wine. There's a sort of powdery, high toned vanilla sheen that provides a glossy, glamorous entry into this wine's substantial apricot/lightly tropical fruit flavours, as well as a line of the finest acidity that runs through the wine from start to finish. Lovely viscous, slippery mouthfeel that lends extra substance to the wine. It really is gorgeous.

I never know what to pair with viognier, so we had this wine all by itself.

Bonny Doon Le Cigare Volant 1999

Finally cracked this little baby, a gift from Chris and Dan, open.

I'm loving this wine. It's sensuous and elegant, the sort of wine that rewards slow sipping and contemplation.

An attractive brick red colour of moderate density. There are aromas of rotting flower, red fruits and spice that blend and waft evenly from the glass. The palate continues this theme and delivers its flavours within the context of gentle acidity and resolved, fine tannins. There are a range of secondary flavours in addition to the still-bright primary fruit. This wine shows good intensity of flavour and great balance and elegance. Medium bodied at most, I'm glad to have opened the wine at this point in its life.

Yalumba The Menzies 1996

I remember tasting this wine at a comparative Coonawarra tasting back in 2000, I think. There were 70-something wines on the night, and this was one of the first. At the time, I was struck by the bright, attractive quality of its fruit. I bought a few bottles and tucked them away safely.

I've been meaning to try it the last few years, but somehow never got around to it. Tonight, however, saw me popping the somewhat crumbly cork on a bottle.

On the basis of this bottle, I may have left it too late. Things looked promising as I poured our first glasses, with exciting spicy aromas emerging from the glass on impact. Unfortunately, these spicy, oak-derived flavours are almost totally dominant, as the fruit has receded to nothing and left a dearth of secondary flavour in its wake. That said, the oak displays some complexity, with spice, vanilla and tobacco notes. But the wine shows no balance, and the finish is quite thin and astringent.

I have one bottle of this wine left, and I'm wondering if I should leave this for a while, to let the oak recede and the whole wine to perhaps turn into an altogether subliminal experience.

Georges DuBoeuf Fleurie Cru du Beaujolais 2005

Something different to have with baked salmon tonight. This wine has quite a deep colour, slightly dull perhaps, not overly dense, but pretty. The nose is expressive and what I'd describe as "overly pretty." I mean that in a good way. It's floral and sweet and slightly confected and has the sorts of flavours one associates with a packet full of juicy lollies. Really fun. There is a layer of deeper, less confected flavour reminiscent of pinot noir that adds sophistication to the wine. I could continue to smell, and enjoy, this wine for a while.

The palate is a bit of a letdown after the bright nose, and shows harsh, astringent mouthfeel alongside its slightly thin and hot fruit flavours. It is quite acidic and, again, the quality of the acidity is a bit rough and ready. I think this wine would be fantastic with food (we'll soon find out), as it has some rough edges that need to be dulled a little, and the wine filled in a bit.

I'd buy it again. It's fun.

Wynns Coonawarra Estate Johnson's Block 2003

Interesting wine, this one. It's a little ungainly at the moment, but I will be interested to see how the other three bottles in my cellar change over time.

The ingredients for a more harmonised wine appear to be present. The nose is quite forward and fruit-driven. The fruit is bright and has good intensity, if not great complexity. It's mostly raspberries with a bit of blackberry thrown in, both fresh and jammy at once, if that makes sense. On the palate, the fruit again leads the way. Tannins are very much present, not coarse exactly but a little raw at the moment. They are the sort of tannins that ache for time to soften and integrate with the wine. Acidity very much along the same lines. I'm not sure it's worth the price ($30-something) but it's a wine that I will follow with interest, because it expresses personality, and that's something that is worth a lot to me as a wine lover.