You tend to get a bit jaded doing what I’m doing. Then a few wines come along that jump out of the glass and smack you around the head. That’s what happened when I opened that bottle of Blue Poles Allouran 2011 for the Bordeaux blends tasting last week. Look at me, look at me, look at me it said as it assaulted my senses with an array of heady aromas.

Merlot became a dirty word after the movie Sideways, at least for serious wine lovers. For the rest of the world, it became a hugely popular soft red. Most Merlot made is soft, sweet and mushy. And cheap, yet the best Merlots in the universe cost more than the mighty Chateau Lafite. Petrus is the most expensive, and the tiny estate of Le Pin is right behind it. We’re talking $4000. Per bottle.

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It’s a different wine company from most, that’s for sure

It’s older than most for a start. It’s a big business producing almost 1 million cases of wine a year, yet it’s a family business and a privately held company. Yalumba’s chief winemaker is a woman, Louisa Rose. There are half a dozen winemakers at Yalumba. They all have their own domains, but these aren’t defined in the usual way.

For example, Yalumba owns 2 Eden Valley Vineyards producing Riesling: Pewsey Vale and Heggies. Louisa Rose makes the Pewsey Vale, and Peter Gambetta makes Heggies Riesling. Louisa Rose also makes the Heggies Viognier since she has championed and developed this variety into several successful lines for Yalumba.

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There are lots of Winners, but wine lovers aren’t among them

The exaggerated wine scores and winery ratings are misleading. I’m indebted to one of my subscribers for these numbers, which show clearly what I mean:

1998 Wine Companion

• 1717 wines reviewed
• 90-93 points – 422 wines – 24.6%
• 94-100 points – 234 wines – 13.6%

2012 Wine Companion

• 5813 wines reviewed
• 90-93 points – 2160 wines – 37.2%
• 94-100 – 1972 wines – 33.9%

It’s known as ‘bracket creep’ in the trade, and it really screws up the system. We’re talking about a point system consumers rely on, and one that retailers exploit to sell their wines.

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Once Cabernet Sauvignon was as scarce as hen’s teeth

In the 1950s, there was Shiraz and little else in terms of red wine. From the Hunter to the Barossa and the Swan Valley, Shiraz was king for red table wines and port. We had some Grenache and Mataro in the Barossa, but they were regarded as inferior varieties. Funny that, given the demand for them these days.

There was very little Cabernet, and that’s why Max Schubert used Shiraz for his Grange. Max visited Bordeaux, where Christian Cruse took a liking to him and showed him everything Max could possibly have wanted to know about making the grands vins. The cépage or varietal mix of these wines must’ve read like a foreign dictionary to Max: Apart from Cabernet Sauvignon (called Carbinet by some winemakers down under), there was Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec. The last one would’ve rung a bell because there were a few vines in the Clare Valley.

When Max decided to make his grand vin back home, there was little Cabernet, let alone Merlot or Cabernet Franc, and Malbec was already on the way out in Bordeaux so Max used the ubiquitous Shiraz. He used American oak instead of French barrels for similar reasons: availability, and cost. More on Max and his battle to realise his vision in Max Schubert, Ray Beckwith and the Making of Penfolds.

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It’s more grist to our mill, that price is no guide to quality, even if $40 is outside our sweet spot. It is the cheapest Pinot Noir at this top of the range tasting; the dearest is $130.

Dexter Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir 2013 – $40 at MyCellars. This Pinot Noir swept all before it with a 97 point score at the Gourmet Traveller Wine Pinot Noir Tasting in the current issue, including Tolpuddle, Ten Minutes by Tractor, Kooyong Ferrous, Ocean Eight and more. The Dexter is the cheapest wine in a mix that covers $50 – $130.

The GTW panel is stacked with serious dudes like Huon Hooke, Peter Bourne, Peter Forrestal and Nick Bullied. Here’s how HH describes the wine: ‘The aromas of sweet cherry-ripe fruit are underscored by toasty smoky oak, but the fruit wins out with its rich, fruit-sweet mid-palate and great succulence.Black and red cherries. Echoes of brandied cherries. Gorgeous wine, seducing today with its finesse, but with the power and structure to take considerable age too.’

Semillon – a Harder Sell than Riesling?

Both varieties have been with us forever, and both are still out on the fringe. Like many other wine writers, I’ve been a vocal supporter of Riesling for decades, yet most people still can’t spell it. Not even wine writers can as this headline in the Telegraph shows: $25 Hunter Valley reisling named the best in Australasia.

Semillon might be easier to spell, but that hasn’t made it easier to sell. Riesling isn’t its natural enemy of course, that’s Sauvignon Blanc. ‘Hunter wine producer McGuigan estimates Sauvignon is selling 3.4 million cases a year in this country,’ Huon Hooke writes in Hunter Valley winemaker launches ‘semillon blanc’, while Semillon is doing about a one-hundredth of that – 40,000 cases. In dollar terms, Sauvignon [Blanc] is worth $438 million compared with Semillon’s $5.6 million.’

What makes Semillon so hard to sell?

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Another perspective on Commercial Kiwi Savvies

Reviewing wine is a tricky business, and I’m the first to admit it. The guys I find most consistent among the pros are the three amigos at the Winefront – Gary Walsh, Mike Bennie and Campbell Mattinson – and Huon Hooke. I check their reviews often in order to check my bearings.

I’ve said some pretty awful things about Kiwi savvies – Marlborough Men and the death of Sauvignon Blanc, NZ Sauvignon Blanc – going from bad to worse, and Oyster Bay – the Envy of Aussie Winemakers. Just now I came across a bunch of reviews by Mike Bennie, which by and large support my contention that Kiwi Sauvignon Blancs are desultory commercial concoctions designed for the lowest common denominator.

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A classy boutique wine that puts many dearer wines to shame

‘Kim, heartily agree on the Topers chardy. What a terrific wine at that price. Bought 6 cases.’ 

Offer Details: We’ve negotiated another special with the good people who make the brilliant Topers Chardonnay 2013. Last week we ran a promo on this wine for paying subscribers, and they loved the wine (see comments below). Now we’re offering the Topers to all our followers at $170 for a dozen (plus freight) which includes a free 12-month subscription to our Best Buys Weekly mailer. The discount code is BWU20.

About the Wine: The bronze medal awarded to this wine provides yet more proof that our show system is broken. A very good friend told me that he’d drunk a number of fancy Chardonnays in recent weeks – Voyager Estate and Flametree SRS among them – and that he preferred the Topers. He added that he’d ordered 3 cases of it.

A subscriber wrote in saying: ‘Lovely understated wine – very very moreish! Reminded us of a Chablis. Very classy. We’re going to order some more, it’s such a great bargain. Thanks for finding.’ He did order some more – 3 cases of it to be precise. Another subscriber wrote:  ‘Thanks Kim – I ordered a ½ case the other week & we love the wine. Just ordered 2 dozen.’ Another wrote: ‘That Topers deal was just too good to resist. Thank you for cutting through all the marketing spin and calling a wine on its value and bang for buck.’ The only complaint I’ve had was that ‘the bottles don’t last long enough.’ 

The wine is made by Madrez Wine Services, a contract winemaking business run by Lucy Maddox and Christophe Derrez in Orange, from Cowra fruit. They’ve been making other people’s wines for over a decade and have amassed stacks of trophies for their wines, which does not surprise me. Only 1200 cases were made, and the reason there’s any of the Topers left is simple: No profile and No Marketing.

So grab some of the Topers Chardonnay 2013 for $170 for a dozen (plus freight) before it’s gone and get a free 12-month subscription to our Best Buys Weekly mailer. The discount code is BWU20 – enter 12 into the box, hit BUY and enter BWU20 on the next page. Press update and you’ll see the discounted price. The offer closes on Friday July 17.

Kim

i want a space here

We check out the wine writers who make our pulses beat faster

Some wine writers get up our noses, others make us smile, others again bore the pressings out of us. The last lot are in the majority but it’s the same with politicians, CEOs of banks and prize-winning novelists. You won’t see many Mark Twains or Oscar Wildes writing about wine but Tom Wolfs are easier to find.

Here’s an example from Philip White, who can turn aroma wheels into Catherine Wheels (and yes, he’s talking about a wine): It smells more like it came from the staff entrance of the Mustang Ranch.  It’s rude and rich and voluptuous in the fruit department, with a great mush of ripe red berries and plums wallowing about.  Maybe even baby beetroot.  Then it blasts off a top note of musk and confectioner’s sugar, and yes, the faintest whiff of the Kanmantoo pit after a blast.

Parker Power – it’s not in the words

We’ll come back to Philip – we can’t just leap over Robert Parker Junior, the man credited with a million dollar nose. Over the last couple of decades, Parker has put millions of dollars into the pockets of Bordeaux proprietors with his glowing reviews and perfect scores. The problem is that he’s handed out too many of these lately. Wine Searcher features a list of the 511 commercially available wines that have been awarded 100 “Parker points”.’

Parker is credited by many for the change we’ve seen in Bordeaux from elegant reds to a much bigger, richer, riper style. As a wine writer, he is polished but conventional. Here’s an example: ‘ … the Pine Ridge 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon is loaded with notes of dark chocolate, spring flowers, black cherries and black currants. This medium to full-bodied, flavorful, pure wine possesses lots of nobility, intensity and richness, but there is not a hard edge to be found in this beauty. For sheer complexity, it is hard to beat. Moreover, it should drink well for 10-15 years.’

Doesn’t get the pulse racing, does it? So let’s get back to the man who has been called the Rimbaud of McLaren Vale, the Charles Bukowski of wine writers and Australian wine’s Kerouac, Hemingway and Montagne rolled into one.

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 Blanc

The strange Ritual of Bordeaux En Primeur

‘The 2014 Bordeaux en primeur campaign has failed,’ writes Andrew Jefford in his Decanter column. He quotes Farr Vintner’s Tom Hudson who blames over-pricing and adds that ‘customers have completely lost confidence in it.’ Andrew adds that leading Bordeaux proprietors seem to be ‘living in a parallel pricing universe to their core customers …’

En Primeur is a strange ritual unique to Bordeaux (and Burgundy). Wine merchants, wine experts and wine writers gather to taste barrel samples of last year’s vintage. This year it was 2014, and you can read a first-hand account from Will Lyons, one of the participants. The idea is that you can pre-purchase the 2014s at this time, and save something like 20% on the sale price after their release next year. Sounds attractive? Read on before you get too excited.

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