NobleRottersSydney - Hunter Valley

A Hunter Valley night. At a time when the Hunter is producing better wines than it ever has (or at least since the 60s), it’s kinda disappointing to hear Rotters admit how little of its wines they currently buy. All those weak 80s Lakes Follys have burned people it seems. Unfortunately, the quality lift has coincided with widespread price rises too, including what seems like a rather unedifying auction-like competition between Mount Pleasant and Brokenwood, who over the space of just a few years have rammed the price of their respective O’Shea and Graveyard shirazes toward the $200 mark. Take that, Barossa. But, does anyone buy them, I wonder?

• NV Deutz Champagne Brut Classic

  France, Champagne

  {cork, 12%} (Aaron) Youthful-smelling nose; peachy, almost banana-like aromas of medium intensity are fresh, an impression heightened by the minimal yeast character. The palate offers gentle tropical fruits with medium-sized bubbles, light/medium weight, and a generally lively, refreshing character. It sits a bit towards the front palate, and isn’t especially profound, and with a barely medium-length finish. Average champagne, not more.

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• 1997 Tyrrell's Sémillon Vat 1

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {cork, 10.4%} (Graeme) Twenty-year-old Hunter Semillon under cork tends to be either toxic or transcendent; rarely in between. Not only did this look hardly darker than mid-lemon yellow, it passed the TCA test too. Result: searing beauty in the glass. Smelt like a great aged white burgundy, laced with honey, toast and sweet roasted nuts. The palate was soft and tantalising, dry, still with effective acidity, balanced right along the tongue, and has a lightness of presence that the lack oak gives. Plenty of honeyed and toast flavours; perhaps a fraction less nuanced that the nose offered – <quibble> there is just a little browning of oxidation here – but it’s a tough judge who wouldn’t sing the praises of this. Medium-long finish of great seduction. Ready to drink. I bought this in May 1998 from the winery for $19 and it was worth every cent!

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• 2016 Keith Tulloch Sémillon

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 11%} (Guest - David) Bright, grassy and fresh. Classic youthful dry Semillon. Pure as water on the palate, but with vivid lychee and straw flavours, just medium acid, and a light-bodied presence. This might blossom a little with time, although it finishes a little on the short side just now. Has some mid-palate presence too. Decent effort.

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• 2015 Brokenwood Chardonnay

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 12.5%} (Stephen) The days are long gone when a winery’s name was a guarantee of origin, especially so with Brokenwood. This is from not the Hunter, but all over the place it turns out, to Stephen’s surprise (sorry “premium wine-producing areas”). The nose offers lots of figs, oak and cashews. Not unattractive, but a bit shallow. The palate is quite taut, with spicy oak-dominated flavours strung out along a medium/high line of acid. Light/medium body. A bit anonymous and hard to pin down; a little time might settle it a bit, but it’s largely a winemaker’s wine rather than of fruit or place. Short/medium finish. Not for aging.

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• 2013 Tyrrell's Chardonnay Vat 47

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 13.5%} (Glenn) Fairly subdues nose of grapefruit, and soft spiced oak. Dry palate, faintly furry in texture, with a polished, slightly tropical, but somewhat (surprisingly) developing character to the flavours. Medium-bodied, with medium acid, this has a dry medium-bodied finish, and seems to have plenty to offer by way of future development. Although, I was surprised how similar it was to the 2012 tasted afterwards, as that always struck me as a faster-developing Vat 47. So I’m left uncertain for the future. This was drinking better than the 2012 tonight though.

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• 2012 Tyrrell's Chardonnay Vat 47

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 13%} (Guest- Sian) Similar tart white fruit and spicy oak nose to the 2013, although the differences are more marked on the palate, where this loses a degree of freshness (not much in development) to its younger sibling. This rides on its fine-grained oak to a larger degree, is just light/medium-bodied, and finishes just a bit shorter than the 13. Comparisons are odious they say, and what would be a very acceptable stand-alone wine is tonight perhaps unfairly overshadowed. That said, it’s still an early-maturing Vat 47 and I reckon should be drunk over the next few years.

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• 2015 De Iuliis Shiraz Steven Vineyard

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 13%} (Bruce) Youthful, bright and peppery. The palate is as tart and peppery as you’d expect from the nose, with some cranberry and cherry flavours. Impactful wine of medium body, low oak, dry savoury character, and short/medium length finish. Seems just a bit dilute to promise a great future, but a few more years wouldn’t hurt. There are so many Hunter vineyards called Steven (so it seems) that I have no idea if this is supposed to reflect some particular character or not!

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• 2001 Andrew Thomas Wines Shiraz Kiss

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley, Pokolbin

  {cork, 13.5%} (Graeme) Decanted about an hour before drinking. The inaugural vintage of what is the flagship shiraz of ex-Tyrrells winemaker Andrew Thomas, with just 170 dozen made. This is old-fashioned Hunter shiraz, although I don’t think the pongy earthiness of this is the legendary brettanomyces which may have driven previous generations of reputation! But this does have leather and tar and pungent earth. It tends more to a mushroom and dust character, always intriguing, but with a laser-like evenness along the palate. There’s moulding gentle oak and rotting fruits, medium weight and a medium length finish. Very good, and although I wouldn’t expect further development, this might hang on a few years yet.

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• 2007 Mount Pleasant Wines Shiraz Maurice O'Shea

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {screwcap, 14.8%} (David) Decanted an hour beforehand. For a short period, it seemed Mount Pleasant were picking the grapes for their flagship cuvee purely on ripeness, and the alcohol levels hovered resolutely around the 15% mark, at which point nearly any shiraz struggles to taste balanced, including this one. There are baked cranberries and blackberries on the nose, which doesn’t show any sign of a decade’s aging. Other than a burnt character… The palate is big and baked, with lots of over-ripeness, which gives it a monolithic kind of simplicity for me. Full-bodied, although this is more texture and presence than flavour per se; and it’s not gloopy or sweet at all. I don’t know. Maybe it will do something extraordinary in 20 years; it’s a style the jury is still out on, in my opinion. I think it’s a wine to either sell (for profit) or keep another decade. I think it’s not showing at its best right now.

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• 1998 Chateau Reynella Vintage Port

  Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, McLaren Vale

  {cork, 19%} (Aaron) This style of wine eludes me entirely. I get lots of brandy spirit, little proper shiraz fruit; just stewed blackberries marinated in ethanol. The may be sugar, but I don’t detect sweetness; all I find is alcohol dominating everything. There must a be a market for this; if the world were me, this would sit on the shelf irrespective of price!

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A good night, even if the section was a little limited in character. A surprise to have more whites than reds. I took the Kiss shiraz as back-up; only the most wide-eyed Pollyanna optimist would take a two-decade old, cork-sealed Semillon as the only wine to a dinner. Since we had so few reds, it was a double surprise to find it in such good condition too.