vintage port

One sweet, one strong

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1996 SA Huet Clos du Bourg Moelleux 1er trie 12.5%
Chenin Blanc, Vouvray, Loire Valley (biodynamic since 1990).

Huet is a famous maker, with a range including sparkling, sec, demi-sec and sweet. Clos du Bourg is regarded as its “top” site. Chenin Blanc is a high acid white wine variety, entirely undistinguished in Australia (although it played an important role in old Houghton White Burgundies, and there are a few brave producers persevering, such as Coriole).

1996 huet

The cork was unremarkable but had performed its task, and the colour was bright gold. Despite its sweetness level (70 g/l?)  this wine was deliberately served with a meal as a savoury white wine. The acidity was completely integrated and concealed the inherent sweetness. Apricot, cumquat, baked apple, honey, marzipan and shortcrust; resoundingly fresh and savoury in intent (regardless of its  analytical sweetness).  Super-complex, it was just a delight to drink and a reminder of the potency of the best wines of the Loire (much harder to find in Australia than they deserve).

Drink to 2030, and 94 points (for surprise value, a higher score is warranted)

1971 Metala Vintage Port
Langhorne Creek, South Australia, likely Shiraz.

Langhorne Creek is not a “renowned” area for VP styles in Australia, but it’s full of surprises. Its longstanding contributions to the red wines of Wolf Blass cannot be ignored. Bleasdale makes an array of excellent Malbecs – and much more- Lake Breeze deserves greater recognition,  as does Bremerton.

The label of this wine had effectively disintegrated, but it’s understood to have been recorked (and possibly tweaked) in 2015. Huon Hooke has an illuminating article on the recent buyback of the Metala brand here.

But it was another knockout to drink – another 51-year-old wine consumed only weeks after the All Saints.

Liquorice, dark fruits, cream and pie crumble, dark berries, dried fruits and the most startling feature was its freshness – a lovely piece of history.

Drink to 2030 and 93 points

Advertisement

1971 All Saints Vintage Port

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

Australia has a prolific number of wineries and wines with “saint” embedded in their names; St Hallett, St Hugo, St Huberts, and St Leonards are merely some that I have purchased. All Saints (established in the 1860s) is an old winery near Rutherglen that went through complex ownership, marketing and labelling upheavals (it’s now owned independently by members of the Brown family.  Visiting as a youngster, I prowled through the enormous hall where barrels of fortified matured (since mostly sold off), the castle-style main building, and the vast estate grounds full of numerous buildings.

This wine was served blind, and my impressions ran “mocha/toffee/coffee, cherry, then very dense, obviously old, sweet blackberry, traditional in style, but still fresh, lively and delicious”. My conclusions- “Australian vintage Port, likely early 1980’s, and unable to guess origin – if pushed, South Australia”,.

Regardless, it’s special occasion when I taste a wine over fifty years old.

Drink to 2030, with 91 points (higher if history nudges wine appreciation more).

2000 Pfeiffer Christopher’s VP 18%

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

Rutherglen, Victoria, 100% Touriga

Pfeiffer is making one of – and arguably-  the best Australian VP style with the amazing 2015 carting away numerous gold medals on the Australian wine circuit, and available on their website  for a surreal bargain price $30.

2000 pfeiffer vp

This was a recent auction purchase. The back label advises “will continue to improve for at least 21 years”, so it was expected to be ready (or near enough with the conservative winemaker predictions that allow for imperfect cellaring).

Good cork, and the sediment was easily removed with decanting

Deep ruby colour with some harmless bricking on the meniscus. There’s plentiful cinnamon spices, dark roses, cherry, and red liquorice with a faint touch pf prune. The palate is bright and fresh, and drier than most Oz VP efforts. High quality brandy spirit makes more of an impression here, overall; it’s succulent with mixed red and black fruits. There’s fine tannin, and this is another wine that provides complete satisfaction for a meagre price.

Drink to 2030, 93 points

Odds and ends impressions- local, and not

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

at matteos

2011 Ch Climens
Barsac, 100% Semillon (biodynamic) 20-22 months in oak, 30-40% new oak

Crème brulee, stonefruit, vanilla, ripe but not overripe apricots, citrus. 140g/l rs, but light on its feet, energetic, beautifully balanced. If time permitted, more nuance would come through. A Long cellaring time beckons but no problem tackling now!

Drink to 2035, 95 points

2010 Crawford River “nektar”
90% sav Blanc, 10% Semillon. 116 g/l rs. From Henty (western Victoria), and proof that Crawford River can produce more than their mighty Rieslings.

Very youthful, with a striking overlay of an attractive green nettle character and citrus, with . Pure, bright, and frighteningly youthful, botrytis and citrus, lingering and packed with acidity. The half-bottle emptied rapidly!

Drink to 2030, 92 points.

1997 Stanton and Killleen Vintage Port
Rutherglen, and regarded by the late winemaker Chris Killeen as his best wine. 60% Shiraz, 25% touriga, 5% each of Durif, tinta cao and tinta barocca. 3 trophies and 13 gold medals (when these were hard to get).

When I tasted this wine prior to its release; I instantly signed up for six bottles, and still have a few! I last wrote about it for this site in November 2018.

Dense deep red colour, cocoa, blackcurrant, chocolate mocha, almond, liquorice and blueberry. Masterful. Australia, you bloody beauty!

Drink to 2035, 95 points

2012 Quinta do Noval unfiltered Late-bottled vintage port 19.5%
QDN now declare a vintage every year, with the “less-than VP” wines cascaded potentially into the single quinta Silval, the LBVPs, and onwards.

LBVPs are a curious partway house between VPs, and the deliberately oxidative tawnies. From a single year, they can fall into “ready” vs “worth ageing”, but I have not found “unfiltered” to be a reliable cellaring guide; the key is producer.

Regardless, this excellent-value wine is a bawling infant, crimson in colour, ultra-fresh with floral red cherry, mixed spices and almond spirit; delicious, dry but ultimately straightforward. Tannin too, but not the substantial underlying depth of a true VP.  There’s no need to rush to consume, but its best will be within this decade.

Drink to 2027, 91 points

Two worthy Oz VP styles

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1996 Chateau Reynella Vintage port 19%
Shiraz, McLaren Vale, bottle #00534 “should offer excellent drinking at ten to twenty years of age”

1996 reynella vp

The photo is of bottle #500, which was rejected as being slightly dull. That’s cork!

Deep ruby in colour, with some bricking. Camphor, red berry and cherry, with a slight confectionary character, and definite sweet spices. Served blind, my conclusion was that the wine was Australian, and predominantly Shiraz, with some Portuguese varieties present. With hindsight, I attributed its plentiful spice notes to Portuguese varieties such as Touriga rather than to the high-quality brandy spirit – so there’s another factor to watch for. The palate was fresh, with mixed spices, Swiss milk chocolate, and some creaminess.

Chateau Reynella – now Reynella-  was renowned for the blackberry characteristic of its VP styles (battling with the “rounder” plate of  neighbour Hardys). However, the absence of blackberry pushed my assumption (wrongly)  to a Victorian base. Altogether, the wine was in excellent condition, and passed the “more please” test.

Drink to 2030, and 92 points.

2003 Morris Vintage Port 19%
Rutherglen, 51% Shiraz, 28% Touriga, 21% Durif.

2003 morris vp

A $22 auction purchase last year. Its label shows gold medals at four different shows across five years, a super- impressive result.

Adequate cork. Deep black with some trivial bricking on the rim. Cherry ripe meets blueberry and violets. Sweetness with wafer-fine tannins. Spirit folded in. Seductive, sensuous texture. Concentration with elegance. Supple, bright and fresh, with a lot of time left to mellow. Bargain.

Drink to 2035, 93+ points

Three wines, at least two learnings

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1982 S&K VP

1982 Stanton and Killeen Vintage Port 19%
Rutherglen Shiraz, from a vintage rated as 9/10 by the winemaker.

Forty years old , and the cork has held up. Bricky colour, but nothing out of order.
Black fruits, mocha, fresh red liquorice, and vanilla bean; almond and clove spices join in. Light milk chocolate, soft palate. Easy to ask for more.

Drink to 2025, and a resounding 91 points

Warre’s Optima 20 Year old Tawny Port 20%
Portugal, bottled in 2013 (and served blind)

Light khaki colour, and packed with toffee, caramel, vanilla, fruit peel, and citrus. Light on its feet, lingering, everything in its place…except one sensitive taster mentioned mousiness.

This is – fortunately for me-not easy to detect (it depends on mouth pH and other factors), else it would ruin my enjoyment of many fortified wines. Mousiness can occur in non-fortified wines, seemingly more prevalent with no-early-SO2 wines (hello, natural wines again). A brief article by Jamie Goode is here.

I can find mousiness via the “skin test”, smearing it over my wrist and waiting for evaporation. The result can be horrific – I liken it to burnt bacon, corn chips and popcorn with a bitter, harsh and unfortunately persistent flavour. Once detected, it’s impossible to overlook –  I’ve had worse than this wine, but…

Avoid. No score.

2008 Ca’ d’gal vite vecchia Moscato d’asti 5%
Piedmont, Italy (served blind)

Partiallly obvious what this was – the frizzante, slightly sparkling style (around 1.5 atmospheres – Champagne is 4.5-6), the sweetness (90-100 g/l) and obvious grapey muscat aromatic. However, instead of merely the usual refreshing sherbetty and “fun” approach, this wine had much more complexity – chamomile, lime, beeswax/candlewax, a spice-bucket with mandarin citrus. Flavours mirrored this, and while still bracingly vibrant, bonus merit for its surprising cellarability and the exotic souk perfumes, Aged for 5 years in bottle, and look at the meagre alcohol level! Obvious ageing potential here. The producer makes a range; this is the old-vine flagship, No surprise its> $120.

Scoring presents a conundrum – Moscato d’asti is user-friendly, but this was well beyond my expectations of the style. It startled me, and led to some research.

Drink now, and 95 points

1972 – a fifty-year-old Australian fortified

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1972 yalumba vp

1972 Yalumba Vintage Port
Barossa Valley, South Australia, and assumed to be mostly Shiraz.

Excellent level, and an intact, well-stained cork.
Deep brick-red colour; sweet brandy notes, liquorice and fruitcake spices. The palate is rich, mellow and rounded with brandy, mocha and bright dark plum fruits, a touch of almond, again with some spices. Clean, lingering, balanced and refreshing. Its enjoyment quotient was enormous.

For a fifty-year-old wine (purchased at auction only six months ago for a speculative $35), this is remarkable.  Australian vintage fortifieds don’t drink any better than this.

Drink now, and this spectacular bottle – at a key anniversary age -deserves 95 points.

Recent misses (and hits)

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

1968 Moulin Touchais (Coteaux du Layon) Loire Valley
Chenin blanc. A bit of dried apple, but this oxidised bottle provided no pleasure.
1979 Moulin Touchais (Coteaux du Layon) Loire Valley
Similar, but worse. Pretty dead.

These “fails” could not be scored. But Cellartracker shows there are better bottles around.

2004 fonseca
2004 Fonseca Guimaraens Vintage Port
Portugal. Ruby colour with some bricking; dark red fruits and plum, dried fruitcake and spices, almond meal, clean spirit, savoury, grippy, chalky. Maybe a tad light, but very smashable at the end of a long night! Not a generally declared year, and in this year Fonseca also produced a Panascal. The single quinta wines can be excellent value.

Drink to 2030, 92 points

2005 Zind-humbrecht Turkheim Riesling 13%
Alsace. Advanced mandarine colour; apricot and tropicals run riot. Palate is off-dry, waxy, with lime marmalade, and  22 g/l residual sugar. Great fun, but drink up. Alsace is so inconsistent, but when they get it right. Zind-humbrecht sometimes seem alcohol-heavy; this hit the spot.

Drink now, 90 points

2000 Chambers botrytis tokay
Rutherglen, Victoria. Its colour was almost mahogany, but it was still kicking sweetly with orange, toffee, quince,  and dried fruits. It was very grapey, spicy, and varietally not Riesling nor Sauterne-like. I was pondering Frontignac, or something unusual.

Botrytis tokay (muscadelle) is uncommon, but not unique. Chambers in Rutherglen released thi style from 1996, 2000 and 2011. Pfeiffer has also made the style.

Drink now, and 90 points-  as a wine that was difficult to define, but worth the effort.

1977 taylors VP
1977 Taylor Fladgate Vintage Port
Portugal. Memories came flooding back after this wine was unmasked; it was the first Portuguese VP I ever tasted, and I instantly purchased one bottle despite my meagre salary. That bottle was opened in mid-2005 – “rose-petal & raisin & Turkish delight, high alcohol, huge power- another 20 years”.

Sixteen years later…. ruby with some brick, not the deepest, but with a mix of red, blue, black, purple fruits; fresh, fleshy, ultra-supple, clean spirit, almond notes, spices and rich dark chocolate. Its owner informed that a three-hour decant did the trick. This wine looks indestructible, and its complexity was a delight.

Drink to 2040, and 95 points

Two different Port styles, two countries

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

2000 graham's vp

2000 Graham’s Vintage Port 20%
Cork in great condition, and the wine has a youthful deep crimson colour; bracingly fresh and floral raspberry and faint musk; palate with rich cherry liqueur and blue fruits ; terrific calibre of spirit, chalks and almond; has entered a decent drinking stage of a long, long, life. Graham’s reputed to be at the sweeter end of Portuguese VPs- but there were no complaints at the table.

Drink to 2040, 93 points – with more to come.

1933 para

1933 Seppelt Para Liqueur Port
1933 merely represents the oldest material in this barrel-matured tawny blend, which was released around 1962. At that tender time, there was no requirement to list alcohol, and its composition is likely to be some mix of grenache, shiraz and Mataro, with an average age guessed at 25 years.

There is the unmistakable squat bottle; but the colour did not show the tell-tale Seppelt khaki/green. It revealed more vanilla characters than expected for this style. However, it was fresher than several previous examples, and showed an array of dried fruits, almond and caramel, with a touch of mocha. Aged Barossa Valley material, and it’s always a treat to look at some history.

Drink now, 92 points.

Two from Brown Brothers

~ Richard ~ Leave a comment

Victorians will haves scores of memories about the Brown Brothers cellar door at Milawa. For many, it was a welcome stopover on the way to the snowfields, or Rutherglen, with nearby cheese, olive, and mustard diversions. A cycling trip many years ago introduced me to the delights of blueberries. The cellar door boasted more than fifty wines available to try, with many obscurities. Brown Brothers played a key part in the wine education of thousands.  Their “Kindergarten” winery also provided a licence for winemakers to make microbatches of trial varieties, and experiment with exotic techniques.

The expanding, efficient, friendly cellar-door provided a wealth of real-life consumer and instant focus-group-like research on likes, tastes and experimentation with prices, with rapid feedback. I was cheerfully allowed to taste the more expensive wines – even after I explained these were beyond my budget.

I recall Graciano, Mondeuse in various blends, the Noble Riesling, and names like Koombahla, Banksdale, Whitlands, Everton; sometimes even the grower’s name was highlighted.

Arguably, there was often competence rather than highlights, but it was almost impossible to avoid a few surprising purchases, and some increase in knowledge.

Brown Brothers took their educational role seriously, not just at cellar door, but at events like Expovin and the Exhibition of Victorian Winemakers.

Their wings have spread, and they continue to source grapes widely; the “Patricia” range is their flagship, with the sparkling wine and the Noble Riesling typically standouts (plus the NV sparkling is ridiculous value, and an easy recommendation). I must return!

brown brothers vp's

1986 Brown Brothers late-bottled Vintage Port 18.5%
Cellar-door release, yet another recent auction purchase
Excellent level and cork; This is a mature colour with a fair degree of bricking; mocha, fudge,  and sweet fruits; a lovely mellow wine- no doubt better ten years ago, bit there is still grace here. The sweet brandy spirit is holding the wine together and this is unbelievably easy to consume, with a bonus for the recollections.

Drink now, 90 points.

1991 Brown Brothers Vintage Port 18.5%
Auction again, and “it will continue to develop in flavour and richness when cellared correctly”. But we have here a wine where nothing moves from its slumber – whether it’s had unfortunate cellaring or has merely had better times. There’s remnants of dark berry fruit, acid and tannin, but a wow-factor of zero.

Drink now, and 85 points for being sound and drinkable, but no more.