Real Review Top Wineries tasting
Ovolo Hotel Woolloomooloo
Tasted Sunday, May 28, 2023 by graemeg with 105 views
Introduction
This event is run by “The Real Review” (an Oz review website) in association with their annual “Australia’s 52 Top Wineries” ranking and website publication (plus newspaper media). I had a comp ticket (subscribers’ price = $99) to their 2½-hour walk-round tasting in Woolloomooloo, Sydney, a week after the matching Melbourne event. 26 wineries (or agents) in attendance, including six of the top ten. Everyone pouring only four wines (maximum, in theory, so around 100 wines) but they were almost universally top-of-the-range cuvees. Excellent fine-rimmed Plumm glasses, plenty of serviced spit buckets, plenty of water. And a food table. Slightly too many people – 150 apparently – for the space (so some table-crowding) and I hate thumping background music, but that’s just me. Trying to do two walk-rounds to taste whites then reds was obviously doomed to failure, so I just went one winery at a time and drank buckets of water in between! I managed eleven of the attending wineries – about what I’d expect; ~20 wines/hr (w/notes!) at a non-self-serve tasting is the best I can usually manage, so 43 wines in ~eighty minutes is OK by me. Since everything poured was current release, I listed the winery prices also. The four top-ten no-shows were Penfolds (3), Wendouree (5), Hardys (7), Tolpuddle (9). I imagine the sort of people who subscribe to Real Review are not the target audience of those two big commercial wineries, and the other two are so small & sought-after that the tasting wouldn’t be of any practical benefit to them from a financial perspective. Yet they must have sent their wines in for review, or they wouldn’t have got a rating <shrug>? Disclaimer: no commercial ties (or other benefits) with anyone, although my wife’s family are friends of the owners of Pooley! Not that it gets me cut-price wine or anything…
Flight 1 - Pooley (No 28 of the Top 52) (4 Notes)
Nice to try some new wines since I didn’t make ‘the usual’ CD visit last January. Wines still going from strength to strength, but prices generally lifting to match. This was my first stop of the tasting and they seemed to be besieged thereafter. As the years pass they’re roping off their original plantings at Cooinda and Butcher’s into single vineyard bottlings with elevated prices.
Flight 2 - By Farr (6) (4 Notes)
I’ve tasted but a few of by Farr’s wines, but always been impressed. Confirmation here. Gary Farr built his reputation at Bannockburn, then following an acrimonious split years ago, set up with his son under this label. Not sure whether pere or fils makes these wines these days.
Flight 3 - Henschke (10) (4 Notes)
Kinda surprised to see these Eden Velley aristocrats making the effort to attend, but then, of all the wineries I saw they were the ones who left most of their upper echelon bottlings at home! All the wines that got them the ranking weren’t there! Not even pouring Mt Edelstone? Shame.
Flight 4 - Pizzini (31) (4 Notes)
Far and away the quality leader in the King Valley, and always Italian-focussed, which largely reflects many of the earlier settlers in the area, along with the founders, presumably! They were a bit of a pioneer for Oz Nebbiolo as I recall.
Flight 5 - Cullen (15) (2 Notes)
Gotta say, Cullen has been a bit hit-and-miss for me over the years, given its reputation. Has embraced the whole organic, biodynamic, hippy thing, which I think has given mixed results. The only winery here today who brought just the two wines – why go to the effort, then? I got the impression the pourer (a junior with the NSW agent?) thought the same, especially since the ‘orange’ wine was clearly polarising the punters.
Flight 6 - Dandelion (5 Notes)
Not listed in the top 52, but here at the tasting nonetheless. They have a massive range of wines on their website, mostly focussed around Eden, Barossa, McLaren Vale. Lots of marketing effort, but relax, the wines are good anyway. They’d snuck an extra wine onto the table too.
Flight 7 - Levantine Hill (25) (4 Notes)
The only producer other than Pizzini showing table wines with even a modicum of age on them, these nevertheless remain the current releases. This may partly explain the eye-watering prices, but then the wines are also very, very good. The entry level wines perhaps not so much, in my experience, but these flagships are outstanding.
Flight 8 - Hentley Farm (33) (4 Notes)
A name I’d heard of, but the wines are largely new to me. Loads of flavour, very much ‘Barossa from Central Casting’; I wasn’t hugely impressed, in context.
Flight 9 - Eisenstone (4) (4 Notes)
Kiwi proprietor/winemaker Stephen Cook was pouring his own wines made from grapes sourced from contract growers. A virtual winery in that sense. Vast range of tiny quantity Single Region (R) or Vineyard (V) shiraz wines from a single variety specialist. Good stuff – and just clinging on to the value-for-money stakes in the way that, say, the Torbrecks, Powells, Ringlands, Penfolds of the Barossa don’t any longer…
Flight 10 - Oakridge (1) (4 Notes)
Most of my exposure to Oakridge has been to the more humble wines in its range. But these are excellent. It looks like I saved the best til last, but that was inadvertent; I didn't actually check the official ranking until after the tasting.
Flight 11 - Morris (2) (5 Notes)
Bit awkward when you make the Top Wineries list for your legendary fortifieds but no-one really cares about your table wines; I guess that’s why they brought their flagship dry red as an ‘unofficial’ taster! And maybe this is why the other fortified specialists in the top-20 didn’t show – All Saints, Seppeltsfield for example.
Closing
The notes above are probably super-critical – there’s was nothing here I wouldn’t drink in large quantities save possibly the ‘orange’ wine. On the basis of ex-winery retail/(=punters’!) price, that’s $4332 worth of wine over 43 tastes. First mass-tasting I’ve attended at those sorts of average prices! Not everyone there was listed in the Top 52: and most of the 11-20 -ranked wineries skipped the event too: Yarra Yering (11), Bindi (12), Seppeltsfield (13), All Saints (14), Clonakilla (16), Bass Phillip (17), Langmeil (18), Arras (19), Shaw&Smith (20). Amongst those who did show, I missed Chandon (nr), Chapel Hill (nr), Graylyn (nr), Handpicked Wines (nr), Heirloom (nr), Howard Park (40), Kaesler (nr), Pepper Tree (32), Pressing Matters (46), Rieslingfreak (48), Robert Oatley (43), Stella Bella (8), Stonier (nr), Taylors (nr), Yangarra (50). Overall, a worthwhile experience, although, gosh, you have to pay a lot for really good Oz wines these days.
2022 Pooley Riesling
Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{12.5%, screwcap, $45} Fragrant youthful musk aromas. Crisp and floral on the palate. Dry, with medium/high acidity, only light/medium in weight, but good presence and a medium length dry finish. Nice wine, but verging on overpriced.
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2022 Pooley Riesling Cooinda Vale
Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{12.2%, screwcap, $70} Nose is similar to the ‘estate’ bottling, with musk and flowers, although more restrained and sullen in character. There’s a little more citrus to the palate, but it’s always tight. Even palate too, light/medium weight, dry, with medium acidity. Medium length, tightly wound finish – too young too drink. Wait 8-10 years at least.
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2021 Pooley Chardonnay Cooinda Vale
Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{13.1%, screwcap, $65} Youthful, struck-match aromas. On the palate, the figs and nuts chip in much more overtly. It’s phenolic in texture, not oaky. Rather Burgundian, to be honest. Medium bodied, classy chardonnay. Value-for-money is a little marginal against other local offerings.
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2021 Pooley Pinot Noir Butcher's Hill
Australia, Tasmania, Coal River
{13.5%, screwcap, $75} Earth and cherry, soil and dirt. There’s always been something mushroomy and elemental about this cuvee right from the start in my view. The palate turns out to be much more floral in character, with red fruit characters too. Soft oak. Very young. Medium weight, medium acid, medium length finish. Way too young – will be better at eight years old when it’s all come together.
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