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.
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Are there many Qld wines for sale in Brisbane? Here in Perth, I don't think I have ever seen a bottle. . .
Hey Edward,
I used to live in Sydney and I don't recall seeing any Queensland wines there either.
There are a few here and there in the Brisbane bottle shops, although hardly a lot. I was at the Brisbane Exhibition (the "Ekka") on the weekend and had the opportunity to taste quite a few Queensland wines. The circumstances were far from ideal (we were tasting out of these little plastic shot glasses!) but there were enough interesting wines to make me feel like doing a more thorough tasting.
I tried wines from about four different wineries in the Granite Belt region. There's a lot of tempranillo going in over there, it seems, but the standouts for me were the shiraz-based wines. I had a couple that were really nice examples of cool climate shiraz, all pepper and spice and elegance. There was even a pinot noir/shiraz blend :)
In chatting with the winery staff, they are very aware of the low profile of Queensland wines, even amongst the locals here. Bit of an image problem, I guess.
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