Yering Station

The cool climate region of the Yarra Valley is located around an hours drive from Melbourne south eastern Australia. Cool climate in that there is considerable variation in altitude and aspect that even the warmest sites of the Yarra Valley are comparatively cooler than the other Australian viticultural regions. In comparison to French growing regions the Yarra Valleys climate is slightly warmer than Burgundy, yet cooler than Bordeaux.


Yering Station Shiraz Viognier 2006
95% Shiraz, 5 % Viognier


Served after a 4 hour decant this deep garnet wine clinged to the glass with firm legs and immediately started to give off its pronounced aroma of dark and red fruit with blackcurrant, dark cheery, a little blueberry and a baked blackberry black current crumble fresh from the oven with spice, pepper and a smoky vanilla topping. Quite dry on the palate with some acidity the smooth body shows a very clean tannin structure, creamy but not in a full bodied round oaked thick kind of way. I feel some very northern Rhone tobacco notes to this well balanced wine. This wine was a great buy at around £10 and certainly gave a good imitation of some of the far more pricey Cote Rotie wines. 91/100

Find this wine on Wine-Searcher

Esk Valley Pinot Gris

Situated on the east coast of New Zealand’s north island Esk Valley is located in Hawkes Bay and is run as an independent winery with its own vineyards and wine making facilities where grapes are sourced exclusively from Hawkes Bay vineyards. The wine is made by Gordon Russell who first started as assistant winemaker in 1990 then achieved head winemaker in 1993. Gordon focuses on the balance and harmony of the wine together with the complexity and palate interest to reflect the terroir of the individual vineyards.

At first a worrying vintage for winemakers in Hawkes Bay the 2007 vintage yielded a memorable harvest despite the cool summer. The vineyards are all free draining and are trained using vertical shoot positioning. The vineyards are harvested at intervals to provide variances in brix levels for acidity and freshness as well as noble rot influences. The Pinot Gris grapes were hand picked at the Hawkes Bay vineyard sites located close to the warm coastline from the 15th of March until the 23rd of April.

Esk Valley - Hawkes Bay - Pinot Gris - 2007

Served chilled this wine has a clear and light appearance but right off the bat the aroma is really dominated by the juicy ripe pear component, really quite aromatic with floral honeysuckle, a little apricot and butter, baked apple and an almost spritzy pear cider nose. The palate is entertained by a great round balance of fruit meets tannin meets acidity again with the soft and juicy pear and honeysuckle flavors. At 14% alcohol this wine hides the heat astonishingly well and is integrated nicely to the smooth round body and acidity freshness, however to be clear this is an off dry wine with a certain moreish danger factor coupled with the alcohol level. I like it though and at around £9 a bottle its a good wine to bring out with friends or to enjoy yourself. 89/100

Find this wine on wine-searcher

Leopards Leap

Leopards Leap – Pinotage Shiraz – 2007

The appearance is quite clear yet with dark colour and pale in intensity. The nose is a little heady, medium youthful intensity of red to dark red fruit and spice but nothing really characteristic. Blackcurrant leaf, vanilla, maybe a nail polish effect of volatile acidity.

First impressions on the palate is slightly drying with a clear acidity hit and a slight tannin structure, there is some alcohol presence on the medium body, defiantly feeling the oak influence and maybe a too much so, a little too much spice for me, hard blackcurrents meets hard black cherry and spice. A medium finish showing slightly unripe flavors and acididy, perhaps a little un balanced for me.

This wine is acceptable but nothing great. I feel its spice overpowers the fruit flavors too much for my liking, what are they trying to hide? It’s a supermarket mass produced school night wine at around £5 to £6, cheap but not for me. Drinkable but always trust your own palate! I will try something else next time. 84/100

New Zealand Pegassus

Located in the Waipara Valley, South Island of New Zealand, the vineyard gets maximum protection from the Pacific's easterly breezes by being tucked up under the lee of the Teviotdale Range. The Donaldson family responsible for Pegassys Bay are firm believers in sustainable viticulture and are accredited members of the NZWG program. The Sauvignon blanc is stainless steel fermented, semillon in oak then both undergo natural fermentation by their indigenous yeasts and have prolonged maturation (5 months) on their yeast lees.

Pegassus Bay – Sauvignon Semillion 2006

Served from the bottle right out of the fridge the appearance doesn't zing out of the glass. Its not cloudy by any means, at all, its clear but there is certainly some depth to it, a lemon golden tint with firm legs left on the glass. The nose shows ripe, overripe almost fizzy prickly pineapple with its skin, citrus, elderflower and an almost reductive (Screw cap? 2006…..im not going to go there!) sweat component, actually this is really quite present in this wine. Its fairly dry on the palate with lively zingy citrus acidity balanced with a medium tannin structure and good minerality. A little floral with some round palate softness and good fresh passion fruit melon, a lemon and lime play and that prickly pineapple making an appearance again. One thing to note is the firm grip on your palate from the acidity, this cuts the front of your tongue like a razor followed by a punch to the back of your throat with astringency and heat. Its rated at 13% but this heat quickly diminishes to a fruity spice component. The wine is good but maybe the balance is slightly too acidic for my palate. Revisiting the wine accompanied with food works a lot better than on its own. I actually prefer it not quite so chilled also. Again revisiting this wine the next day takes the spike and prickliness of some of that fruit. At £9.95 on sale at the moment at Wine Direct this is a great value wine for the complexity it brings to the table. 90+/100

Find this wine at Wine Direct

Laughing Magpies

d'Arenberg - The Laughing Magpie - Shiraz Viognier - 2007

Allegedly this wine was the McLarenVale’s first ever Nothern Rhone blend combining 90% Shiraz and its white partner, 10% Viognier. The 2006 vintage started and ended early in the McLaren Vale with a dry winter, heavy rains in spring and a mild, early summer leading into a warmer period during veraison halting vegetative growth. 2006 grew vines with healthy, balanced canopies on most soils and later allowed vines to channel energy into the fruit. The Shiraz and Viognier bunches were crushed and co fermented together followed by an ageing process of 12 months in French and US oak.

This wine was decanted for around 4 hours and followed a bottle of d'Arenberg Last Ditch Viognier tasted last week. It had a very dark appearance with nicely gradiated edges and a complex, interesting nose of raspberry's, blueberry's and spice. The taste was smooth but full bodied with notes of pepper, cedar box, tobacco, chocolate and dark fruit. The finish was medium but showed a nice ripe firm tannin structure and again a peppery play. The 14.5% alcohol is very well hidden by the structure of this wine and at around £12 to £13 is very enjoyable for a dinner occasion or on its own. 90+/100

Find this wine
Wine Searcher

A lovely Viognier

d'Arenberg - The Last Ditch - Viognier - 2007

This Northern Rhone varietal grown in the cool climate of the Adelaide Hills was fermented in old oak, no mallolactic with only free-run juice making it to the bottled wine. It spent approximately 9 months in 5 to 20 year old French and American oak barrels although with no obvious oak influence. Served from a chilled bottle this wine instantly began to fill the room with its green earthy vegetative aroma. My glass looked like it had lime juice in it, the cordial stuff you buy and mix with water, slightly green with pale edges. Quite complex on the nose, herbal, vegetative like you stuck your head inside a green bush with hard packed soil and dry stones underneath it. A little apricot as if it had been smacked with one of those big round stones. First impressions were good. The thing I noted right away on the taste was macerated white fruit, like white currents soaked in melon juice and apricots but keeping the fruityness in check with the apricot stones getting ground into this mix. Very round and soft on the pallet with a little thickness, very little acidity. Quite a good finish showing hard mandarin peal, herbs and that bush again. At 13.5% alcohol and available for under £10 this wine is very easy to drink, I like it and will be adding another to my collection for a summers day. 90/100

Find this wine
Wine-Searcher

More d'Arenberg write ups to follow soon.

Wine for food

Le Cassiane Montepulciano d'Abruzzo 2007

Spaghetti with meatballs accompanied last night wine (yup apparently the wine came first) and they both complimented each other rather well. That probably doesn’t paint the best picture of my cooking skills as this was a cheap supermarket wine I picked up a while back half price at around £4.99. Expectations aside it went into the decanter around 2 hours before the first glass and actually came out alright. This dark Italian wine from Abruzzo was not the most aromatic in the world but showed good soft tannins tingling each side of your palette as it washed its way down. Cherry and dark fruit flavors with a pleasant tasty finish of dark ground chocolate. A definite winner of the value vs price comparison test at £5 for a 75cl bottle, not sure what it retails for outside of the offer.

Not so great on its own but a winner with meaty pasta/spaghetti dishes over lunch or dinner if you don’t feel the need to pop something more expensive. 87/100

Argentina Value

The Country

Argentina is the 5th largest wine producing country in the world kicked off by the Spanish colonisation of the Americas in the 1500’s who introduced viticulture to the country. Red wine production accounts for nearly 60% of all Argentine wine. The high temperatures of most regions contribute to soft, ripe tannins and can result in high alcohol levels. The growing season in Argentina usually last from budbreak in October to harvest beginning sometime in February.

The Region

Around 70% of Argentina’s wine production is made in the region of Mendoza. This district is by far the dominant wine province with an array of varietals and many different regions within it making the province one of the top wine tourism destinations in Argentina. Located in the west of the country, the Mendoza wine region is flanked by the long chain of the Andes Mountains, often visible from the vineyards, which separates it from the wine regions of Chile. As of 2008, the Mendoza region contained more than 356,000 acres (144,000 hectares) of planted vineyards-producing nearly two-thirds of the entire Argentine wine production.


Under Argentine wine laws, if a grape name appears on the wine label, at least 80% of the wine must be made up of that grape variety. In this instance Luigi Bosca is using 100% tempranillo despite Malbec upholding Mendoza’s longest tradition and reputation for fine wine. Tempranillo (known locally as Tempranilla) often undergoes carbonic maceration, a wine making process used to achieve the fruity and fresh wine of Beaujolais in France.

The Producer

Luigi Bosca’s history begins with the Arizu family and their 100 years of wine making experience. The Arizu’s owned their first vineyard in the early 1900’s with European vines. These were cultivated by highly skilled English workmen who operated back then, the pinnacle in viticultural technology, the steam-powered plowing machine. Vintage after vintage skills were past through the generations of Arizu’s when the family commercialised into Luigi Bosca who's wines entered the international market in 1984. Today Luigi Bosca makes three levels of wine; The value entry level 'La Linda' which I've tasted below, 'Core' followed by 'Gala'.

Terrior

The tertiary period brought alluvial deposits to the soil which combines loose sand over clay and pebbles on the 32 hectares at 960m above sea level. The terrain has good inclination which ensures the drainage of melted snow transported via canals and ditches for irrigation. Luigi Bosca has decided to adopt some, but not all, of the principles of biodynamic cultivation aiming to improve the life of the vines and surroundings so they can defend themselves against disease. They observe lunar cycles for some of the varieties so the maturation, planting and harvest coincides with the lunar cycle so as to improve the fruit.

The Wine

Finca LA LINDA - Tempranillo 2006 – Luigi Bosca - Mendoza Argentina


Nice deep colour, firm legs on the glass, Smells a little hot on the nose (only 13.5% on the label though), showing clear fruit maybe a little unripe, good initial attack on the taste buds bringing fresh plum fruit, present acidity that cuts from the front of your pallet straight through down to the middle then round the sides. Finish reveals baked dark fruit, not especially long, good soft tannins, almost velvety in texture but not quite, very slight astringency. Id have another glass! Decanted for 3 hours. Good value at between £6 to £8.

87/100