NobleRottersSydney - Cabernet & blends

After the extravagance of last month’s Peak Bordeaux, normal service is resumed. Cabernet against cabernet blends, in a non-scientific comparison. In theory. Way too many Barossa bottles for such a theme I reckon, along with some off-theme ringers. Welcome new Rotter, Paul. And Andrew’s return (sort of).

• NV A. R. Lenoble Champagne Cuvée Intense Mag 16 Brut

  France, Champagne

  {cork, 12.5%} [Graeme] Young. Clean. Grapefruit, mostly. On the palate some lemon too. Crisp and dry texture. Light/medium weight. Intense, small, creamy bubbles. Even palate. Not especially developed on the palate. Needs time, it seems.

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• 2004 Mount Mary Quintet

  Australia, Victoria, Port Phillip, Yarra Valley

  {diam, 13%} [Graeme] Developing nose of cassis and cedar. Aging but still fruity. Lovely cabernet flavours on the medium-weight palate. Fruity but not too sweet, with medium powdery tannins and medium acid. Even palate. Classy stuff. Instructive to taste alongside the 04 Gruaud. This was lighter, fruitier, a bit less structured. They weren’t dissimilar to my palate – I almost wish I’d blended a bit of each to see if it would combine the best of both wines! This MM will keep happily, but is drinking nicely now. Medium-long finish, seductive and enchanting. Double-decanted off minimal sediment two hours earlier.

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• 2004 Château Gruaud Larose

  France, Bordeaux, Médoc, St. Julien

  {cork, 13%} [Paul] Nicely developing. A little earthier that the adjacent Mount Mary Quintet, but also has cedar and currants with a spicy twist on the nose. The palate is just on the heavy side of medium-weight, with medium chalky tannins and medium acidity. Nicely even palate, ripe and rich, with a beautiful savoury quality. No shortage of fruit though. A bit more depth that the Quintet. Medium long finish too. Impressive, lovely wine which will hold for plenty more time.

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• 1999 Rosemount Estate Cabernet Sauvignon

  Australia, South Eastern

  {cork, 13.5%} [Geoffrey] The old diamond label wine – a blast from the past! Although, perhaps not so much a blast as a moan. Or possibly a death rattle. Aged nose, with a dirty mud and resin aroma. Palate is still earthy, not quite as bad as feared. Like an ancient Beaujolais. Now light in weight, with no structure left – nor fruit really – just an increasing volatility. Not worth drinking.

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• 1998 St Hugo Cabernet Sauvignon Coonawarra

  Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra

  {cork, 13%} [Geoffrey] This makes up for the Rosemount, though. Well-developed aromas. Dark cassis with some herbs on the nose. But also malty, even resinous oak too. The palate is very ‘cabernet’, with some classic Australia mint to add to the basically black-fruited flavours. There’s some vanilla oak quality here too. It’s a bit light-on for complexity, being a bit one-dimensional, but it has plenty of body and presence on the tongue. Drink up though, it’s nowhere left to go except downhill now.

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• 2001 Elderton Cabernet Sauvignon Ashmead Single Vineyard

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa

  {screwcap, 14.5%} [DavidH] This was quite an early adopter for flagship reds under screwcap. Twenty years on, looks like a good choice. Developing aromas, with maturing black jammy fruit with a milk chocolate quality. Very much cabernet meets Barossa. Palate is full-bodied, fairly oaky, with medium dusty tannins and medium acidity. Big rich flavours on the palate, still chocolatey, but darker, a touch roasted but not overblown or veering into dead grape territory. Even palate, medium length finish, a little warm but not too much. A triumph of region over variety though. Much better than I was expecting, for some internally-biased reason, no doubt!

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• 2012 Grant Burge Cabernet Sauvignon Corryton Park

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa

  {screwcap, 14.5%} [Stephen] A generation on from the preceding Elderton, but of the same mould, if not quite the same quality. Chocolate and blackberry jam nose. Rich and chocolatey palate, medium dusty tannins, low/medium acidity. Seems a little blowsy and unfocussed after the Ashmead wine. Will happily age another dozen years or so, but doesn’t quite have the quality of ingredients in comparison, which shows in the short/medium length finish. Perhaps just a little over-ripe. Still decent drinking though – I’m quibbling a bit, and only because the other wine was so stylistically similar.

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• 2012 Mount Mary Quintet

  Australia, Victoria, Port Phillip, Yarra Valley

  {cork, 12.9%} [Gordon] This was double-decanted two hours prior but implied a threat of cork taint. It certainly didn’t have the purity of the 2004, but it wasn’t obviously ruined either. Hard to call. A bit scalped at worst. Cedar and earth. Low-key palate with some leafy cabernet fruit, currants, berries, but without much depth or finish (short/medium at best). Low/medium powdery tannins, medium acid. Meh. Would have loved to see a diam-sealed version alongside to prove the point.

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• 2017 McLeish Estate Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  {cork, 13.4%} [Gordon] Developing, low-key nose of white pepper and tobacco. From the Hunter, no less – another region where terroir thoroughly trumps variety. The palate is medium/high in acidity, with low/medium chalky tannin, little overt oak character, a light/medium body and cherry, savoury-type flavours on the light red spectrum. Reserve, eh? An even palate and a medium length finish promise a bit more for aging though – the old Hunter ‘burgundy’ style was always more dependent on structure than variety, so this might age for twenty years and be better for it. Given the vintage, it’s easiest to call this just too young.

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• 2017 Brangayne of Orange Tristan

  Australia, New South Wales, Central Ranges, Orange

  {screwcap, 14%} [Gordon] A cabernet-shiraz-merlot blend. I thought this a bit glue-like. Tidy, ripe palate though, although it lacks concentration of flavour for me. Generic sort of fruit flavours (or that’s the effect after all-cabernet so far), medium in weight, with low/medium finely gritty tannins and a medium length finish that tails off beyond the mid-palate. Not terribly convincing; certainly not something you love so much that death is the final release (per the operatic label connection…)

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• 2015 Chateau Reynella Cabernet Sauvignon Basket Pressed

  Australia, South Australia, Fleurieu, McLaren Vale

  {screwcap, 14.5%} [Glenn] Confusing. Reynella and Basket Press makes me think of shiraz, and this did seem very chocolate-and-shiraz-like on first sniff. It was a bit more curranty and authentic on the palate; cassis, blackberry. But it seems a very rich, drink-now style, with low/medium acid, low chalky tannins, medium/full fruit-driven weight, a hint only of seasoning oak and a medium length finish. Probably a narrow window for this to find its peak.

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• 2015 Chateau Tanunda 150 Year Old Vines 1858 Field Blend

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Barossa Valley

  {cork, 15.7%} [Andrew] Someone in the marketing dept at Tanunda is working hard coming up with these esoteric limited bottlings of ancient vines and asking big money for them. This one might be a record, with an unusual Eden Valley vineyard field blend of grenache, mouvedre and… malbec! planted in 1858 and packaged up into just 1200 bottles ambitiously priced at $600 each. Maybe there aren’t so many of us still around who associate the ‘Tanunda’ name purely with cheap brandy! The nose is still very young, a touch heady, with lots of spice, cranberry, blackberry. The palate is fruit-driven, with a sweet twist to those same flavours, but also a loose-knit sort of structure, with medium acidity, not much oak or tannin and a medium/full body that culminates in a medium length finish which doesn’t quite conquer the alcohol. It’s a nice enough wine, but the pricing is silly. Not sure cellaring will improve it further myself.

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• 2016 Senorio De Astobiza Vendimia Tardía

  Spain, País Vasco, Arabako Txakolina

  {375ml, cork, 12%} [Graeme] From the Basque region of Spain. Very muted nose. Aromas and palate manage a light citric touch, then with more of an apple-juice sweetness at the medium-dry level. Medium weight with medium acidity too, but finishes short-medium only and is pretty simple, to be honest. Subsequent research tells me that Txakoli (dry white) is an early-drinking style; not sure that the late harvest version should be aged longer. So, better when it’s young.

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• NV Freycinet Vineyard Botrytis

  Australia, Tasmania, Freycinet Coast

  {500ml, screwcap, 10%} [Graeme] A blend of 50% 2016 with remaining 2017 and 2018 grapes from Tasmania’s east coast, so ‘multi-vintage’. Hence a great way to manage some tricky vintages! Developing nose, although that’s largely the effect of masses of botrytis, which gives a real patina to the nose which has lychee sort of aromas underneath. Manages a mix of richness and lightness, translucency to the palate; the label with its sticky web is entirely appropriate as there’s a real spider-web quality to the light texture and honeyed flavours, despite a decent medium weight of presence on the palate. Long finish mixing full sweetness with fresh acidity. Waves of flavours. Great now. Why keep (if you have more!) ?

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• 1992 Taltarni Cabernet Sauvignon Special Reserve

  Australia, Victoria, Western Victoria, Pyrenees

  {cork, 12.7%} [Graeme] A late entry to save me carrying it home. No decant; cork is a third wet but no leaking. Aged nose, a bit minty; a touch oak-driven too. A little anonymous perhaps. The palate has musty old coconut, eucalypt, although it does seem younger than thirty, to be fair. Medium acid still, but the tannins have softened right out to the point of absence. Light/medium weight at heaviest, medium length finish, but nicely even. A pleasant but not truly memorable wine, perfectly peasant. Not really worth thirty years’ cellaring though!

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Wine of the night was all over the shop, although I thought the pick of the reds were the first two ‘04s, along with the Ashmead for being so much better than I was expecting. Freycinet was a big hit too. I was surprised to see so little from Coonawarra, Yarra, Margaret River. What’s with all this Barossa when the theme is cabernet? Yeesh.