NobleRottersSydney - Hunter Valley dinner

Some tasting notes from the The Noble Rotters Annual Weekend 2002 away to the Hunter Valley, on this occasion.

• 2002 Mount Pleasant Wines Sémillon Elizabeth

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  Siphoned from the tank earlier in the day, this was a mouthful of lime juice, acid & lemon. I know they talk about great wines being in balance even early in their life, but really this is an ‘acid trip’. The only way you’d say it was balanced is that there were plenty of non-acid flavours there as well! I can see why they keep it a few years prior to release. I expect it will turn out very nicely. (Note – I see some retailers have some 2001 Elizabeth for sale under Stelvin already.)

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• 1998 Mount Pleasant Wines Sémillon Elizabeth

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  My umpteenth tasting of this wine, and for me it’s still a disappointment. Over-developed for this stage of its life. The nose already displays a honeyed toastiness. There is some acid present, certainly, but I don’t find it particularly refreshing. I think this will be one of the shorter-lived Elizabeths and am spending my hard-earned on the 99 instead.

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• 1999 Barwang Chardonnay

  Australia, South Eastern

  Bright straw yellow, this assails me with strong buttery-malolactic aromas. On the palate it manages to aviod being cloying, with a blast of fresh front-palate fruit and some clean acid. There’s understated coconut oak in the background as well. Still, it’s a bit of an up-front wine none-the-less, with a short finish.

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• 1999 Mount Pleasant Wines Chardonnay Maurice O'Shea

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  500 cases only made, and made using full Burgundian techniques. The is certainly some integrated french oak on the palate, following on from the grapefruit & melon aromas. Typical ‘sophisticated’ New World chardonnay. Medium length & weight, quite attractive. Not sure that I’d expect it to age for very long – it’s a bit loose for that.

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• 1999 Mount Pleasant Wines Shiraz Maurice O'Shea

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  Fresh young nose of cloves & spice. Lots of fine powdery tannins on the palate. A long persistent finish of medium body, but the wine still feels all closed up. Needs time – it’s like a closed flower at the moment.

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• 1997 Mount Pleasant Wines Shiraz Rosehill

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley, Pokolbin

  Bright cherry red. Gentle spicy aromas. On the palate very smooth & rounded, although there’s quite an assault of tannins early on. There’s no harshness on the back palate though. Rather hard to pin down, I think this in something of a hole at the moment. I don’t think quality Hunter shiraz shows anywhere near its best at 5 years old. Again, more time required, although I’m not sure this will ever match the 98 vintage.

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• 2001 Orlando Riesling St. Helga

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Eden Valley

  Very pale straw, this stelvin-capped wine displayed light, ethereally-floral aromas, followed by almost a hint of spritz on the palate. There’s a smattering of lime fruit, with sweetness of the flavour, rather than sugar, kind. It does finish a little short, though.

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• 2001 Jacob's Creek Riesling Steingarten

  Australia, South Australia, Barossa, Eden Valley

  More stelvin. This is ultra-closed – I can scarcely detect any aromas at all on this wine. A hint of minerals & musk perhaps, but that’s being imaginative. Some steely acid on the palate, but even this is not as persistent as I expected (maybe this is a consequence of tasting young Hunter semillon beforehand). Not a ‘generous’ wine by any stretch. If there are rieslings made in Australia that are absolutely NOT intended to be drunk young, this surely must be one of them. Maybe it will blossom. Maybe I’ll taste some more older Steingartens one day and find out.

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• 2001 Orlando Chardonnay St. Hilary

  Australia, South Australia, Mount Lofty Ranges, Adelaide Hills

  Clean fresh modern chardonnay nose, which is to say showing some restraint and not oak dominated. In fact, acid is the dominant sensation on the palate. There is a little malo influence present – that soft buttery nuttyness that I dislike so much - but this is no fat blowsy chardonnay of old. This is refreshing & quite acceptable – oak very much a component rather than a feature. Pretty good wine.

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• 1997 Orlando Cabernet Sauvignon Jacaranda Ridge

  Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Coonawarra

  Diffuse notes of a strongly menthol character on the nose of this one. It’s has plenty of fine-pixelled tannins, and firm acid too, but the fruit is well overshadowed by these structural elements. Tastes as though the makers had to work very hard to compensate for inadequacies in the fruit. It has the skeleton of a much bigger wine, but has not the stuffing to fill it out. A boy on a man’s errand, if you will. A pretty decent sized mid-palate hole is the give-away to the struggle it took to get this wine to the point where they felt they could ask $50 (or whatever) for it. Good for $25, but that’s all.

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• 1997 Jacob's Creek Limited Release Shiraz Cabernet

  Australia, South Eastern

  This was the big gun as I recall - $60-worth? It displays an extracted liquorice quality, with some fruit-cake aromas and vanillan oak. There are distinct vintage similarities with the Jacaranda Ridge, except this was made to be a blockbuster. The herbaceousness of the fruit is disguised as a flavour, if not as a texture. It feels as though the fruit was unripe, rather than tasting that way, if that makes sense. Even the shiraz doesn’t fill out the palate somehow. Maybe these notes are harsh, but I can’t help judging in the context of price, and from that perspective it doesn’t measure up. For big money I want a long finish, and this wine doesn’t have that. Actually I prefer the Jacaranda Ridge given the vintage.

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• 1997 Orlando Shiraz Lawsons

  Australia, South Australia, Limestone Coast, Padthaway

  Lush, plummy aromas. Some rich-ish blackcurrant fruits & vanillan oak. This has a much better balance than the previous two wines, and ends with a medium length finish. It’s still quite a lightweight wine beside previous Lawsons wines – doesn’t match up to even the 96, let alone the 94, which I think is the best Lawsons of the 90s. Oddly enough, at this stage of the night the 97 McWilliams Rosehill (having been open a few hours longer) was the better wine to drink. This is probably one of those ‘good-for-the-vintage wines which you’d only buy if a) they were massively discounted or b) you’re addicted to vertical tastings.

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• 1994 Wyndham Estate Sémillon Show Reserve

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  Deep yellow. A textbook Hunter semillon nose, but the acid has faded away almost entirely on the palate, leaving this wine rather unsatisfying at what is really the end of its life.

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• 1999 Wyndham Estate Chardonnay Show Reserve

  Australia

  No region on the label, and it turns out to be ‘South-eastern Australia’ Hmmm, A big peachy, vanilla-sweet nose. There’s enough fresh acid to carry all the extraction at the moment – but its pretty unremarkable in a commercial style.

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• 1997 Wyndham Estate Shiraz Show Reserve

  Australia, New South Wales, Hunter Valley

  A dusty plum nose, with quite persistent tannins on the palate. Wears its Hunter origins lightly. It does fade in the mouth rather quickly

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• 1997 Wyndham Estate Cabernet Merlot Show Reserve

  Australia, South Eastern

  Another Chateau Kenworth wine. According to the Wyndham PR flack (or was it winemaker) this wine has been cleaning up the trophies at wine shows. Must be the residual sugar, I reckon, because I find this overpoweringly sweet. There are indeterminate red berry flavours, a lash of sweet oak, although the tannins run a poor second to sweetness.

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Note one wne missing from the notes:
2001 Old Hill Shiraz (Hunter)
There’s no such thing as this wine, of course – the name is simply a description of what it is. This is US-oaked Hunter shiraz from McWilliams Old Hill vineyard, and is destined for (blending with other material to form the) O’Shea Shiraz. Again, siphoned from the barrel that afternoon, it certainly tastes that way. A vivid black-purple, the woody nose fair assaults you from the glass. There is some plummy fruit underneath, but really it’s tannin city here – leaves your mouth feeling like you’ve been chewing on dust. Not surprisingly for an unfinished wine, it’s pretty much undrinkable now. Makes you appreciate the skills that go into assessing wine quality during these formative stages of its life.