WTN: Aussie Classics (Wendouree, Mt. Mary, John Riddoch...)

Keith Levenberg hosted a few of us for dinner and a lineup of classic Australian wines. No Grateful Palate bombs here as the lineup had some real gems from down under with the likes of Mount Mary, Wendouree, John Riddoch and Best's, accompanied by Keith's hugely addictive home made fries and faux-Outback grills. A seriously fun evening, thank you for putting this together Keith.

2008 Joh Jos Christoffel Urziger Wurzgarten Riesling Auslese 2-star
Keith had this open in the fridge from the previous day, poured me a glass while lining up/decanting the Aussies. Really delicious stuff with bright red fruited and peachy flavours over slate, floral elements and very faint honeyed touches - really rich fruit but not overly sweet or heavy with plenty of acidity and a sense of lightness that's more akin to Spatlese. Fantastic wine, I'm really loving every '08 I've had from Christoffel.

Now onto the main event...

2002 Mount Pleasant Elizabeth Semillon (Hunter Valley)
Perhaps a little bit past its prime, bright gold in colour, quite waxy and nutty in its flavour profile with some melon and quince fruit underneath, creamy at the back end but a little soft for my liking without the acidity I look for in Hunter Semillon.

2006 Grosset Polish Hill Riesling (Clare Valley)
Really smoky, pungent aromatics with lots of kerosene and petrol leading into a palate full of pale citrus and white fruited flavours and an intense gravelly minerality. Very light and precise with razor-sharp acidity and a long tart, refreshing finish.

1996 Mount Mary Pinot Noir (Yarra Valley)
Fantastic stuff, sappy cherries and other red fruited flavours with touches of leather, earth and cardamom in a seamless, glossy-textured package with plenty of finesse and length. Really delicious.

1988 Wynn's Coonawarra Estate John Riddoch Limited Release Cabernet Sauvignon (Coonawarra)
Stunning aromatics with a gorgeous scent combining cedar wood, smoke, tobacco, cassis and minty and eucalyptus accents, equally lovely in the mouth where it's very light on its feet, combining dusty red fruits and cassis with developed aged Bordeaux-like flavours and a bright eucalyptus/minty element hinting at its Australian origin. (A whopping 12.3% alcohol)

1993 Parker Coonawarra Estate Terra Rossa First Growth (Coonawarra)
Very ripe and intense (especially following the very restrained, nuanced John Riddoch) with bright red fruits, plums and currant fruit with some noticeable oak and coffee flavours. Boring.

1999 Wendouree Shiraz-Mataro (Clare Valley)
Typical Wendouree, really singular in its dark, savoury flavour profile combining coal smoke, herbs, black olives and beetroot with earthy and eucalyptus accents. Incredibly young with the forbidding structure of a young Barolo, but already there's so much detail and nuance here - this is an amazing wine to sit down and follow over some time. Wow.

1994 Mount Mary Quintet (Yarra Valley)
Great stuff with a nose that screams older, mature Bordeaux with its scent of cassis, dusty red fruits, herbs and cigar smoke, and a palate that's got plenty of bright fruit, developed herbal and earthy nuances that unfold with some air and bright acidity keeping it very fresh and precise (and making it a perfect food wine). Perhaps my wine of the night, though it was a hard call between this and the Wendouree.

1998 Mount Mary Quintet (Yarra Valley)
All the same elements as the '94 with the same elegance, lightness of touch and incredible nuance, only difference is that this feels much younger with the fruit darker and more youthful and the tannins a little more prominent. Fantastic wine that I expect will last and develop for a long time. (12.5% alcohol for the record, the '94 was 13%.)

1998 Best's Great Western Bin 0 Shiraz (Grampians, Victoria)
Flawed with serious volatile acidity making it very hard to drink. A shame, as another bottle I had a few weeks ago was fantastic.

1998 Best's Thomsons Family Reserve Great Western Shiraz (Grampians, Victoria)
Weird; plenty of dark fruited richness with chocolate, bandaid and floral accents, but there's a fair bit of volatile acidity here as well (not as bad as it was in the Bin 0) and the alcohol makes its presence felt on the back end. This is the only real heavyweight of the lineup at 14.5% alcohol (only wine of the night over 14% in fact) and it showed.

1998 Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz (Eden Valley)
A real disappointment - I've heard this particularly Edelstone can be very hit or miss, and this started out with pleasant leathery and red fruited flavours, but after some air this turned into the essence of canned tomato paste. Bleh.

1995 Mount Langi Ghiran Shiraz (Grampians, Victoria)
Wild aromatics with an intense scent of white pepper, eucalyptus, meaty elements and red and dark fruited flavours with other exotic spicy accents. Really delicious stuff with plenty more ripe fruit and spice on the palate and serious length - delicious.

For fun afterwards we opened a couple of truly awful joke wines with dessert (chocolate brownies and ice cream - yum! ), leading into a debate as to which joke wine made Keith/Jay Miller cringe more.

1997 Glaetzer Shiraz (Barossa Valley)
Essence of dried out American oak. Brutal and offensive, but hilarious in the circumstances.

2001 Clarendon Hills Old Vines Grenache Romas Vineyard (Clarendon)
Overripe, pruny red fruits, hideously alcoholic and candied. Atrocious!

Salil,

Overall, an excellent line up. The Mount Marys are from good years and have performed as you would hope. The Mt Pleasant Elizabeth is very much their entry semillon and 2002 was not a great year. The one to watch out for the Mt Pleasant Lovedale semillon. Likewise the Parker is from a pretty poor vintage so if you see one from96 or 98/99, I would give it another go.

FInally well done on the John Riddoch, this is one of the top cab savs in the country and really benefits from the extra time. I would love to try some of the older JR. I have some from the late 90s early 00 but probably won't try them until I am well into my retirement years.

Mark (aka the rooman )

Hi Salil,
Just had a John Riddoch last night, 10 years younger, and I may have underestimated the time to wait though the bottle was certainly not wasted even now.

• 1998 Wynns Coonawarra Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Limited Release John Riddoch - Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra (2/7/2010)
  Very dark. Full of dark cassis, big tannins but not hard, some mint. Very good balance in a very big package. Went well as expected with rack of lamb with mustard glaze. Enjoyable now, but will give another year or so before the next bottle.

Charles

thanks for notes. I find cool climate Aussies interesting, but hard to find.
I have 1 bottle of the 95 Mt Langhi Gihran, thanks.
I generally like the Parker Estate 1st, but it is imho kind of the middle ground of Aussie reds.
The 88 Mt Edelstone might be by favorite Oz wine I've had, but not tasted much more recent.

I remarked as we were starting that we got really lucky with the lineup. Nearly every name you want represented in something like this was there. (Try accomplishing that in a Burgundy tasting!)

I didn't care for the Parker, which was nicely aromatic in a mature St.-Emilion kind of way but overly slick and flabby - the Mt. Marys were by far the most compelling of the cabernets/blends, with the '94 maybe my favorite red of the night as it was just-plain ready in a way the '98 was not. I was a little disappointed by the Thomson Family which had a pretty sophisticated texture but no flavor distinction whatsoever, and very disappointed by the Edelstone which David Wainwright called an off-bottle. The Langi did not thrill me at first, but it kept getting better and when I revisited the leftovers it had turned into a star - essence of cracked pepper, catnip for syrah lovers.

Sounds like a nice night's tasting.

Grosset Polish Hill riesling is a favourite of mine, but I tend to drink it up quite young. I like young riesling rather than aged. The '06 sounds like one that might be a candidate for a longer time in the cellar with the kerosene and mineral characters - what did you think?

The winery's notes on the '06 Polish Hill (http://www.grosset.com/wines_polishhillriesling06.htm) suggest it's a classic year and presumably a long ager. Older Grosset is rather impossible to find in the U.S., so it'll be a long wait for me to find out what these guys taste like with some age on them.