NobleRottersSydney - Champers & Reds

Guillaume at Bennelong
Tasted Monday, February 5, 2007 by graemeg with 537 views

Introduction

The final Noble Rotters dinner at Guillaume’s at Bennelong. It was going to be an all-champagne theme but we decided we needed some reds with dinner…

Flight 1 (9 Notes)

Also drank NV Pol Gessner and Pommery before these vintage wines:

  • 1995 Charles Ellner Champagne Brut "Seduction" Millésimé

    France, Champagne

    {13%, cork} Something of a newcomer to the Australian market I believe – and at a price, too. Yellow-green in colour, with medium size bubbles visible. A soft nose with a little bread, but overlaid with strawberry / pinot characters. Pleasantly rich palate, creamy in texture, fine bubbles. Some development of pinot fruit – not especially young. Good balance. I enjoyed this, but at A$150 it’s very pricey.

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  • 1996 Lanson Champagne Gold Label Brut

    France, Champagne

    {13.5%, cork} An intense lemon-yellow, and with relatively fewer rather fine-looking bubbles, this wine smells like the back room of a bakery. The palate is bone dry, with at least medium acidity (although perhaps a little less than the house’s reputation would suggest) and generally weighted towards the front of the tongue. Long, powerful chardonnay fruit, not really developed yet. Very good.

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  • 1993 Pol Roger Champagne Vintage Brut

    France, Champagne

    {13%, cork} Quite a dark lemon colour, with medium bubbles on view. Easily the most developed champers of the night, the nose here is all honey and mead – very alluring indeed. The palate is verging on slightly tannic, with medium-sized creamy bubbles, and medium-full weight. Good weight of texture all through the palate – a lovely wine that’s surely drinking at it’s peak. Pick of the bubblies for me.

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  • 2000 Coriole Shiraz Lloyd Reserve

    Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, McLaren Vale

    {14%, cork} The ambience has become a bit dim to make colour judgments, but I’ll wager this is beginning to fade at the rim. A developed nose of pepper, soy and cough mixture. The palate contributes a dash of chocolatey oak. Just up to medium body in weight, with moderate powdery tannins and soft acidity, I think this low intensity wine is a bit of a victim of a somewhat mediocre vintage in McLaren Vale. The weight is mostly on the middle palate, the finish is not especially long. It misses the richness you’d expect in a 14% wine, that’s for sure. A heroic attempt by the winery to compensate for the raw materials, but falls at the last hurdle for me. Best to drink soon I think, further development is unlikely to be beneficial.

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  • 1997 Leconfield Glenroy Siding

    Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra

    {13%, cork} A blend of Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cab Franc, and I’m going to assume this was the result of an experiment done where not one leaf was removed from the canopy during the entire growing season. One of the most polarizing reds I have ever inhaled, this smells like an asparagus highway into an olive city. Green leaves, man. On the palate there’s eucalypt as well – it tastes like a koala’s cocktail. Gosh. Dry, surprisingly moderate tannins which build a little, yet never really lift it even to moderate weight. Oddly, the fruit doesn’t actually taste unripe, just umpteen shades of green. Bizarre. Coonawarra’s answer to M*A*S*H. Something of a hole in the midpalate precedes a short finish. Drink now, drink later – it doesn’t matter. Don’t think this wine will ever change much.

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  • 1994 John's Blend Cabernet Sauvignon Individual Selection

    Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, Langhorne Creek

    {13%, cork} There are no mainstream wines tonight, apparently. Here’s a Rioja with a Strine accent. After 30 months (or was that 300?) in American oak, your vanilla milkshake is ready, sir. It’s lovely soft sweet coconutty oak, true, and it is possible that there’s some cabernet hidden in here somewhere. All soft and furry on the palate. There’s even a hint of porty flavours, but without any alcoholic heat. In all, not a bad wine, despite a rather reticent back palate. But you gotta like the style…

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  • 1994 Château Léoville Poyferré

    France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

    {12.5% cork} Here’s something classical, but from a neither-one-thing-nor-the-other vintage. In fact the nose is the best part of this wine, all lovely classic blackcurrant and cedar, a little correct leafiness. Not enthralling, but certainly promising. The palate is dry, perhaps now a light-medium in weight, certainly aged, with soft developed cabernet fruit. It’s best feature is good evenness of finish; the weight is not crammed towards the front of the palate like the previous two wines – it’s clearly the best of the reds tonight for me. But it is beginning to dry out somewhat on the finish, enough to suggest that it’s on the downward slope of maturity. Still good, not great, but don’t tarry too long unless you like your wines on the desiccated side.

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  • 1990 Bollinger Champagne La Grande Année

    France, Champagne

    Always worth saving one decent champagne to go with a cheese plate, and this was it. Despite the age, still only a mid lemon in colour. Remarkably young aromas of liqueured strawberries and melon. A dry, medium bodied palate, with creamy medium-sized fizz, a surprisingly dark red aspect to the fruit, and medium-high acidity which contributes to a powerful finish of good length. Still has many years to age. Stunning stuff.

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  • 1988 Château Lafaurie-Peyraguey

    France, Bordeaux, Sauternais, Sauternes

    {cork, 14%} Medium intensity amber. Hmm. A distinctly oxidized note to the aroma – classic honey & caramel underneath, but overlaid with that maderized note which really does take the edge of the anticipation. Sure enough, although the palate retains some coppery citric interest, much of the richness has departed with the freshness, and there’s a kind of hollow lusciousness remaining. Finishes very short and rather dry, for a sauternes. Pity. Think how good it could have been under a screwcap…

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Closing

And so concludes our time at Guillame’s. Good restaurant. Was wondering how long they’d hold the prices for us, even on a Monday…

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