Henschke Keyneton "Euphonium" 2003

The wines of Henschke always seem to have an intensity and richness that is much like an Aston Martin - sleek and elegant on the outside, but packing a fair punch underneath. Dense jammy red fruits, insane menthol aromas, with subtle hints of cedarwood and tobacco. A wonderfully long length (oh-er) and its not ridiculously expensive either.

Australia Day Tasting

Danny and I went up to Edinburgh over the weekend to attend the Australia Day tasting at Our Dynamic Earth. We spend the sunday night in Glasgow, where I tried to find some of my old haunts (unsuccessfully, most of them it would seem have changed, closed or even been demolished) and ended up a bit pissed in Subway scoffing a 12" meatball sub at about midnight (on a sunday!!!!!). We drove over on monday morning after a quick detour to stock up on Square Sausage (a scottish delicacy!) then proceeded to take nearly twice as long to find the bloody place, once we were in Edinburgh, as it took to drive over from Glasgow!! But eventually we got there and we got down to some tasting.

The new venue was quite good, lots of natural light, plenty of space, and a circular layout which seems to make the place bigger on first impression. We started out with the whites, and managed to taste a few good whites on the Alliance wines stand with Giles their MW. The Tassie rieslings and Pinot Gris' were pretty good and may be worth a few listings. Further round the room we spend a bit of time with Francis from OW Loeb who was there with Phil Sexton from Giant Steps. Phil is an interesting character, a brewer by trade they started making wine in the Margaret River with a winery called Devils Lair and a beer called Little Creatures. When they sold up, they moved over to the Yarra valley where they set up Giant Steps and Innocent Bystander. The two labels share many outstanding qualities but their defining characters would be that Innocent Bystander wines are winemaker wines, whereas Giant Steps wines are Vineyard wines. By that I mean that IB wines are the product of winemaker "manipulation" in the winery to create consistent products - good well made wines that use cultured yeasts to produce certain characteristics in the wines. Whereas the GS wines are the products of the fruit grown in the vineyard. Minimum intervention, wild yeast fermentation, they will show marked differences from vineyard to vineyard, vintage to vintage. For me the two standout wines where the Giant Steps Sexton Vineyard Chardonnay and the Tarraford Vineyard Pinot, both showing really complex layers of flavours, with soft fruits layered with defining earthy characteristics. Then we had the muscat!!! OMFG it was divine!!!!!!! Cheeky little half bottles of heaven - light, slightly sticky, just sweet enough with a hint of petillance. The guests are gonna love this one. Phil and his marketing guy were there telling us the first vintage they made of this they made some 600 cases. It sold out. The second vintage they made about 40000 cases, it also sold out. The next vintage comes of the vines in about three weeks. They are planning on making some 600000 cases of it, and it looks like it is already all sold out. It should be on the shelves about five weeks after the harvest, which is a pretty impressive turnaround.
By now we'd done about all the whites we were interested in and so we cycled round again and hit the reds. We spent some time again with the Giant Steps guys before we moved on over to the Cult and Boutique stall and spend a bit of time there with the guys. They had some fabulous big reds, including a stonking grenache, with a seriously wallet unfriendly price!!! But they had a few wines that Im interested in, so hopefully we will be able to do something with them.

Overall it was quite a productive day, I got to see a few old friends and faces, and despite the dominance of the supermarket brands, there were some great little wines there and I reckon that a few will end up on the list over the next few months. We had several hundred miles to go home, so after a brief dinner at the nearby Pizza Express we headed home. Not a bad little jolly.

Domaine A - Tasting Tazzie!

One of my favourite account managers dropped in to see me the other day with the export sales manager from Domaine A wines. Domaine A are based in Campania Tasmania. Now just now Tazzie has got some seriously good ju-ju, getting loads of good press from the likes of James Halliday as the region to look out for. Go back about five years or more and the only Tazzie wine you would find would be Pipers Brook, which under the stewardship of Dr Andrew Pirie produced some cracking wines, including an eponymous sparkler which was fantastic. Now Pirie has moved on to new pastures in Tasmania, but loads of new wineries are now available in the UK, the likes of Tamar Ridge, Ninth island (2nd wine of Pipers), Devils Corner, Pirie, Jansz, Bay of Fires and of course Domaine A.

Now Id been fortunate enough to taste the Lady A Fume Blanc from Domaine A a few months earlier with Noel. Somehow he had been sent a sample bottle (considering that the UK allocation is about ten cases (of six) samples are exceptionally rare!!) and diamond geezer that he is, he wanted to taste it with me. Now Id hate to have this wine in a blind tasting, because Id swear blind it was Bordeaux Blanc, and good bordeaux blanc at that. Which is kind of amazing really, because apparently it was "created" to be in the style of Pavillion Blanc, which the owner Mme Althaus adores. The nose just doesnt present like a new world wine at all, the fruit is restrained, in balance with the flavours of the oak, a touch of smokyness, richness that just grows in the glass. The wine has complexity, many different layers that slowly reveal themselves over time. This is a wine to enjoy slowly, with food, and great friends. It is also best enjoyed at cellar temp, not chilled to death!! Were it now for the fact that the wine has only been made for about five or six vintages it would probably be in the top ten wines in the Langtons Classification, which is Australias premier classification for wines.

Paul also brought along a couple of reds to show us. We tasted the 2003 Pinot first. Again I would have hated to get this in a blind tasting. Morello cherries with a touch of spice competing with eucalyptus notes would probably steered me to barossa shiraz, all that was missing was the black pepper. This is a big pinot, quite weighty, but bloody good, if a little bit on the scary expensive side. Next up we tasted two different vintages of the Cabernet. First up was the 98, brambles and tobacco, very slight hints of eucalypt, but not as dominant. The wine was a deep purple colour, with the rim showing no discernable signs of maturity. I couldnt believe this was the 98, the nose was so fresh, vibrant, and on the palate it was the same. The fruit was vigorous, vibrant so fresh. It seemed so young. The 2000 had more black fruit character, and a touch more eucalypt on the nose, although the seamless integration of fruit and oak seemed to blank out the menthol characters on the palate. The wine is aged in 100% new french oak, which is bloody expensive in Oz. That quite possibly contributes to the scary prices, which puts them into the top end of double figures, barely scraping away from three figures on the wine-list. But if someone asked me, I would wholeheartedly say they were worth it.

Im hoping to do a gourmet dinner with Paul next year and showcase the wines of Domaine A, because they are fantastically good, and I get the feeling that in years to come they will be considerably harder to get, as their popularity grows. Danny was so impressed with the white that in the three days since the tasting he has gone and sold four bottles. Ive only got two left, and if I beg I might be able to get another six!! That will have to do me until next year!!

Two Aussie Classics

Got off to a racing start tonight with the return of our favourite customers. This time it was a table of four, with Danny's mummy and daddy as the extra pair. Mr B was torn between the magnum of Grant Burge's Mesach Shiraz or the recently arrives Armagh 89 and Hill of Grace 87. I thought that I knew which way he would lean, and I started off suggesting the Armagh and then see which way the wind blows.
In the end it was the Hill of Grace that got started first due to its slightly more delicate nature when I opened it. To look at it you would have guessed it was a pinot, it was very thin and light, a pale brick dust colour with a very fine suspension. On the nose it was quite restrained with very soft red fruit flavours. I was almost ready to dismiss this, but then in the space of five minutes it blossomed. This still wasnt recognisable as H.o.G., at least not in any sense that Ive ever experienced it, but as time passed it seemed to grow in stature. I went from not being sure about it, to being a bit disappointed, to being pleasantly surprised to loving it. Dont get me wrong, but the 96 we had a Paco's leaving do was utterly sensational, but this was very different, more subtle, more restrained, yet much more elegant, less of a nasal bully, more sensual on the palate.

The Jim Barry Armagh 89 however was a fairly typical Aussie shiraz, brassy fruit upfront, menthol/eucalypt tones and a lingering cassis finish, but even this had a slightly softer edge about it. The last vintage of Armagh I had was an 96 and it was a big beasty of a wine, massively dense black fruit flavours with a full menthol hit, like freebasing a packet of tunes, and a hugely alcoholic undercurrent which swept all the flavours together and flushed them straight into your bloodstream. By the time Id had half a bottle I felt like Id just down a round with Bruno - punchdrunk and all furry in my mouth. The 89 however didnt have that massive alcohol, the abv sits at 13.5%, by Aussie terms thats low alcohol these days. Many wines now sit at the top end of 14 and 15%, a few even breeze into the fortified wine bracket sitting on a whopping 16% alcohol. The 87 Hill of Grace is a measly 13%. Ill have to dig out the bottles of older H.o.G. I kept at home to see what they sit at but Id bet good money it way higher than that.

Mr B loved them, and they even got the thumbs up from Mrs B, its not often she raves about the wines as much as she did tonight. Im glad they liked them, and I hope that the next (and last) two live up to the rep that these two set up tonight.

Smells like a Pepperami!!?!

Not a description that you would expect to be hearing when youre nosing a wine, but damn me if it wasnt very accurate. The bottle was a 1986 Henschke Keyneton Estate, back when the blend was Shiraz, Cabernet and Malbec. After splitting the damned cork, I managed to get the remnants out without them cascading into the wine, and poured a very small amount into the glass to check it. Sure enough it was a rich spicy sausage like aroma not unlike a spicy pepperami. Just goes to show, inspiration comes in the most unlikely places.

Bridgewater Mill Chardonnay.

From the Petaluma stable, this is a fantastic chardonnay. Drawing on fruit from three regions - Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra, this is a blend of the three terriors. The terra rossa soil of Coonawarra lends a richness to the wine, while the cooler climate of the Adelaide Hills adds crispness and a sharper acidity to the wines. The Shale soils of the Clare give a touch of minerality to the blend giving quite a harmonised wine. I used to work with a guy, Graeme, who used to describe this wine to customers as "lemon curd on hot buttered toast" and bugger me if it isnt! A rich lemonny citrus note with buttery, yeasty flavours and a good dose of french oak. Winemaker Brian Croser is fond of the rich burgundian style of chardonnay and so the wines get a great deal of battonage. Im not a fan of "typical overoaked aussie chardonnays" but this isnt, there is plenty of oak there, dont get me wrong, but its well balanced and nicely integrated into the overall flavours. This isnt a "four by" wine ie one that tastes like being whacked in the chops by a plank of four by two. Its quite cheap too, representing really good value for money.

I understand that Croser has now sold Petaluma to Lion Nathan, and has set up a new winery down in Wrattonbully at the old Koppamurra vineyards just north of Coonawarra where Croser first got started making wine many years ago. A joint venture between himself, Jean-Michel Cazes from Lynch-Bages and Society Jacques Bollinger, parent company of Bollinger Champagne. Its now called Tapanappa and Ive just recieved six bottles of their Whalesbone Vineyard Merlot 2004 this morning. Im quite excited about it because Ive been reading rave reviews from James Halliday and Jeremy Oliver about it, and now Ive managed to get six bottles. Only 150 cases were made, so I would imaging that very little came over to the UK. Its not cheap, its ended up on the list at over £100, so its probably a good thing I only got 6!!

Regions to be cheerful.

We have quite a classically organised list here. After all the Arkle is supposed to be a classical french style menu, with a modern english twist. But with over 600 bins it makes more sense to have then organised by origin. I like it like that because at the moment a lot of people seem to make their choices by country of origin more than anything else. South America and South Africa are quite popular at the moment, and if I get my way they will expand considerably on our list.

Now for all out quality I dont think that you can beat the old world. Especially France and Spain, but also Italy and Germany. Nowhere in the world is there such complexity of flavour and such defined structure in the wines. But with few exceptions they are terrible value for money. Bordeaux prices are verging on the ridiculous, and Burgundy is going the same way. Spain is starting to get more expensive too, but at the moment there is a lot of value for money to be found in the lesser known regions - Ribera del Duero, Priorato, Toro, and many others if you can find them. In the new world you have the two heavyweights of USA (California) and Australia. California represents shockingly bad value for money. With the exchange rate working in our favour at last, the wines ought to be cheaper, but incredibly they are still rising in price. Now this is mostly due to market economics - there is such a strong domestic market for the wines at home, they have no reason or need to export, and consequently they can charge whatever they want. For me Californias big problem in the UK market is the two extremes of wine. At the bottom of the market you have the floods of Gallo, Sutter Home, Blossom Hill and other mass produced "bottom-feeders". At the other end of the market you have blockbusters - cult names like Harlan Estate, Opus One, Screaming Eagle, Peter Micheal, all three figure wines. But like a donut theres nothing in the middle. It might surprise you to know there is much more to the American wine market. Oregon, Washington State, New York, in fact just about every single state (Alaska is, I think, the only state that doesnt produce wine) makes wine. But again, due to small volume production and strong domestic consumption, these wines dont make it over the pond. Canada has a booming wine industry, mostly around two provinces - British Columbia and Ontario. The problem with sourcing them is more to do with State monopoly of supply I think than anything else, but again low volume, high domestic demand will prevent them being exported in any great quantity.



Down under you have Australia and New Zealand. I love their wines, the diversity, the quality, the funky names, the intensity of flavours, whats not to love. But Im getting a little bit bored. Australia has the same situation as California regarding the two polar extremes of wines available, but their position is slightly better than Californias. I must say its getting harder to find the new boutique wines from Aus. The wines that I started out with, used to be boutique, they used to be quite limited and exclusive, but over time their fame has spread, their volumes have increased and now they are a bit more widespread than they used to be. New Zealand conversely is suffering from the reverse. Due to two consecutive low harvests quantities of many wines are seriously depleted and many of the better wines are becoming more limited. This is great, if you are lucky enough to secure an allocation. Although the other side effect of this is making the prices jump up, and lets face it New Zealand was never cheap in the first place.



So where does that leave? Well I reckon it leaves the best till last. South Africa and South America. Starting with South Africa, theres been a huge amount of change over the last five years. For me, looking through merchants wine lists, its great to finally see many of them listing more South African wines. And better wines - not that mass produced co-operative wine that the supermarkets are all knocking out. There is still a long way to go, but as many of the farmer realise that they have more to gain by turning their own fruit into wine than selling it to the co-ops, then we will start to see many more wines appearing. Of course that isnt to say that they will all be blockbusters, but from little acorns mighty oaks grow, and given the right materials, development, marketing and listings, the opportunities are there. There is a huge amount of investment into developing wine regions - and not just financial investment. Old world winemakers are turning their sights to the potential of countries like South Africa, Chile, Argentina, where the resources are available, but they lack the knowledge, skills or equipment to do the job properly. Pichon-Lalande have recently released their new South African venture Glenelly Hills to good reviews from Jancis et all. And the convenient timing of the southern hemisphere harvest allows the winemakers to complete two vintages per year - Nico van Der Merwe from Saxenburg has been doing this for a number of years at Capion in the south of France and Saxenburg, not to mention his own range of wines - Mas Nicholas and Robert Alexander.

For Value for Money, undoubtably the best place to look just now is Chile and Argentina. Two countries with a long viticultural history, it is really the last twenty years that have seen their wine industry explode onto our shelves. (Helped in no small measure, Im sure, by exploiting the weak currency of the region). As they have become better at correctly identifying the grape varieties we are starting to see two grape varieties gaining dominance in the region - Malbec and Carmenere. Malbec has almost been written off in France, relegated to a bulking out grape in Bordeaux and producing the inky black Cahors, otherwise a neglected variety. In Argentina it has found its new glory. Densely packed fruit flavours with a rich floral violet character and an almost feral gameyness about it. You can almost imagine the Gauchos swigging it from the bottle as they grill a huge chunk of blood red meat over an open fire. Carmenere is another neglected Bordeaux variety (odd isnt it that the two now dominant varieties originated in Bordeaux, yet grapes were introduced into South America by the Spanish!!), now flourishing in Chile where it produces a minty cassis flavoured red, tannic but quite elegant. I think we are only just beginning to see what they have to offer us in terms of style and quality, and as long as they continue to offer great value for money, these countries will remain high on our shopping lists.

Berton Gourmet.

Last night we had the Berton gourmet evening, and Paul Bartholomeus came over from Australia to host it. (Well there was also this little trade thingy he had to attend - LIWSF). Id been looking forward to this one for a while, as the wines are all top banana, but better than that they are all in the affordable bracket. Their top cuvee, the Bonsai Shiraz will be sitting on our list at around £60.

We kick started the evening with the Head over heels Sparkling Chardonnay. Fermented in steel tanks with oak staves to impart some oak character its made by the Charmat method. Think of it as a gigantic soda stream kind of thing and you arent too far off the mark. Stupidly I never actually tried this one, so not too sure what its like, but everyone seemed to enjoy it. For the starter we poured the Head over Heels Forgotten Riesling. This wine got its name because it was literally forgotten about when they were harvesting the vineyards and after a couple of extra weeks on the vines it had ripened up nicely, giving them a fairly high potential alcohol. The wine has a lovely character of citrus fruits, lime and ruby grapefruit with a green melon like finish to it. There is some residual sugar giving it an off-dry flavour. This was a really nice complement to the pork, cabbage verjus and foie gras.

The intermediate was a rose made from Sangiovese and Barbera (sounds like some funky 60's cartoonist). A lovely nectarine skin colour this had a beautiful nose of rosehips and cranberry. I kind of forgot to taste this one as well (wasnt on top form on Tuesday!). But I got loads of positive comments about this one.

Main course was paired with the Bonsai Shiraz. The name came around when a visitor to the vineyard jokingly asked them if they were growing Bonsai vines as the vines were quite stunted and low to the ground, producing really small intensely concentrated berries. I liked this wine, Ive liked it each time I taste it. When I was double decanting it earlier in the day it gave off a really powerful aroma of cassis, blackberry and that slightly menthol note that usually comes off Barossa wines. The Boss didnt really like this wine, but then Shiraz has never really been his thing, hes more of a Bordeaux variety kind of drinker.

Cheese was matched with the 2005 Reserve Cabernet from Coonawarra. The Terra Rossa soils of Coonawarra seem to be perfectly suited for Cabs, and this is no exception. Cassis, licorice, cinnamon spices and the ubiquitous eucalyptus notes all blend very well together.

We finished with the Raisined Semillon, another late harvest wine. Rich, sickly sweet, this went beautifully well with a date sponge, sticky toffee and iced walnut.

All in all a really good night, Paul was very entertaining, and everyone left nice and happy.

Henschke Keyneton 1986

I managed to find a couple of bottles of Henschke Keyneton Estate red 1986 on Lay and Wheelers bin end list. Ive always liked the Henschke wines, and the Keyneton was always a favourite. Up until 1999 it was made of a blend of cabernet sauvignon, shiraz and malbec, but in 99 they changed the malbec for merlot. Personally I think it was much better with the malbec as it had a more polished finish and a character that I cant really define. Dont get me wrong, it is still a great wine, and at a great price too, its a good introduction into the Henschke way of winemaking.

I sold a bottle of the 86 the other day, to someone who I honestly wouldnt have figured to go for that kind of wine. All of which shows that you cant always judge a book by its cover. I was pleasantly surprised by the wine, which showed really vibrant fruit character on the nose - big stone fruits, berries and currants with that aroma of prunes and aged fruit that I find in mature reds. (As an aside it had this awful plastic capsule which was a nightmare to remove). The colour was a gloriously violet red with russet brown rim. It was a bit dull with some hazing, but I put that down to being slightly disturbed bringing it up from the cellar. On the palate it was a fantastic wine, really rich fruit following on from the nose, with soft supple tannins still and a touch of acidity still. I dont believe that there is much more lifespan left to the wine, its not a keeper, but by heck its drinking well now. I only hope the other five bottles are as alive as that one was.