Edmonton Australian Wine Club

While we have been enjoying the beach and the golf for some 7 weeks we also managed to try quite a few wines, some of them we mentioned in our trips to Barossa, McLaren Vale and Yarra.

One of the outstanding wines we tried was the Torbreck Woodcutters Shiraz 2003 which was rated a 90 by James Halliday. All of the Torbreck wines we have sampled were excellent and the Woodcutters was great value for price. We bought this wine for the winecellar. Check Ed at Devines for the details. We previously bought the Struie for the cellar as well.

We enjoyed several Grant Burge wines – the 2003 Nebuchadnezzar Shiraz-Cab, the 2004 Miamba Shiraz and the 2000 Meschak Shiraz. All of these wines impressed us, the Miamba, which was tasted at one of the club events a while back, is excellent value for the reasonable price cost. The Nebuchadnezzar needs time but should evolve nicely. The Meschak was still quite tannic, great fruit, and would be worth putting away for a special occasion in 5 years or so.

Some of the easy drinking wines we tried included the 2002 Brokenwood Cricket Pitch, which was just so-so, the Cockfighters Ghost (McLaren Vale) was a bit jammy, but had good fruit and we enjoyed it. Moondah Brook (WA) makes a very nice Verdelho, and Marcia was particularly fond of that one. We all enjoyed some nice rose wines, including the Mrs. Wigley from Wirra Wirra. This is outstanding and would be great drinking on a hot day.

Marcia and Rashid brought us a bottle of Charles Melton “The Father-In-Law”Shiraz (around $32) and this is an excellent wine. Don’t know if it is available in Edmonton but worth buying if you can find it.

The Two Hands “Gnarly Dudes” 2003 was really excellent, and I hope that Wade brings in more of this at the Wine Cellar.

Marcia and Rashid also were taken with the Hazyblur Shiraz from Kangaroo Island. Not sure if this is in Edmonton, but most of their wine goes to North America.

Also tried the 2002 Hillside Shiraz from Kay Brothers Amery (McLaren Vale) this wine will likely cost around $40. but has excellent potential for cellaring.

Hope to see you all at the tasting on March 27 and I will be glad to update you on any questions then.

Marty

Adelaide is one of the major centres for winemaking in Australia, with the Barossa Valley, Coonawarra and Adelaide Hills established for many years.
Some of the up-and-coming spots include Limestone Coast, Eden Valley and Clare Valley.

On our second day-trip out of Adelaide, we visited the McLaren Vale area, touching a couple of new (to us) wineries and others that are better known.

All of these wines are available in Edmonton: the D’Arenberg and Fox Creek more widely stocked.

Our first trip was to the Hugo Wines establishment, one of the boutique wineries in the area. These people established their vineyards some 50 years ago, and, as their altitude is somewhat higher than the Barossa, they featured grenache and cabernet sauvignon in reds: sauvignon blanc and chardonnay in whites. We sampled the unwooded and wooded chardonnays, which are lighter but very fruity and probably should be drunk earlier. Feature at the winery was the grenache, which came off very well. Lots of fruit, nice tannins and some staying power. The cabernet sauvignon was dark ruby in colour, a bit floral on the palate but quite complex. Again fine for early drinking.

After Hugo, our next stop was Foggo, which James Halliday places among the five-star wineries in McLaren Vale. Again, Grenache was the star. Foggo features some of the oldest vines in McLaren Vale. The Grenache was from older bush vines, which is a feature we saw on several vineyards in the area. These vines were planted in 1925, and was matured in American and French oak for 12 months. The palate is nice soft fruit and great length.
Foggo’s old vine shiraz and cabernet sauvignon also are from old vines – the shiraz planted in 1915 and the cab in the 1950s.
We liked both of these, along with their Hubertus Reserve Shiraz, and look forward to tracking them down when we return home.

Then it was on to a stop at D’Arenberg, where one could taste about 20-plus wines if you have the stamina!
We really liked the Lucky Lizard Chardonnay, a real keeper.
Among the standbys, we tried Footbolt Shiraz, Sticks and Stones Tempranillo-Grenache-Souzao: The Galvo Garage Cab Sauv-Merlot-Petit Verdot – Cab Franc: the Laughing Magpie Shiraz-Viognier: and, finally the great 2003 Dead Arm Shiraz.

These are all super wines, and, for the money, the best value seemed to be the Galvo Garage and the Laughing Magpie.

In the afternoon, we visited Fox Creek, Wirra Wirra, Kay Bros Amery and Coriole
The tastings that stood out for us included the 2003 Church Block blend at Wirra Wirra; the 2003 Woodhenge McLaren Vale Shiraz, and, again, a Grenache – the 2003 McLaren Vale, all at Wirra Wirra.

A specialty at Wirra Wirra was the Mrs. Wigley Rose, great for hot-weather sipping.
Their outstanding wine was the 2003 RSW Shiraz which looks to develop well over the next decade.

We enjoyed the Short Row Shiraz at Fox Creek but didn’t get to taste their reserves as they were just coming out.

At Yarra, we unfortunately travelled on Australia Day (very busy) and there were some bush fires around, causing power outages at some wineries.

The two most notable spots we stopped were at Yering Station and Coldstream Hills

Yering Station is a five-star rated winery (by Halliday) Their top wines included the 2004 Shiraz Viognier, a fine Cabernet Sauvignon and an excellent Pinot Gris. This was one of the few places we visited that produced Pinot Gris, and the wine was excellent.

Coldstream Hills was started by James Halliday, and it reflects his high standards. Top wines there include great chardonnay, the best Pinot Noir I have tasted outside of Burgundy, a limited release shiraz which has all the characteristics of a fine Rhone (including the barnyardy nose) and they are now producing a top Merlot Reserve
These wines are not easy to find in Canada, are brought in by Southcorp, but if we can find some we will be adding these to our wine cellar.

If you want to ask about specific wines, check with our two industry members – Cristalls and Devines to get more info.

I’ll report again later in March, with tasting notes on what we try while here on the Sunshine Coast

Marty Larson

Marty writes from Australia:

Here are some comments on the Barossa wineries we visited. Will do McLaren Vale and Yarra next time on the internet.

Shirley and I spent a delightful day in the Barossa on a personally guided tour which I would recommend highly.

We had two days of plus 40 temps in Adelaide before the visit to Barossa and McLaren Vale, plus 26 our two days in the vineyards.

In addition to the Bella’s Garden, Harry and Edwards Garden and Lily’s Garden, we also tried the Gnarly Dudes and the Sophies Garden. My tasting notes indicate very nice beside the Gnarly Dudes, “great” beside Bella’s Garden and Harry and Edwards Garden, and “greater” beside the Lilly’s Garden. The Sophies Garden was also outstanding, offering a minty taste that was unique to that vineyard. I believe that might come from the Eucalyptus trees growing nearby

Any one travelling to this winery should see their “bakehouse” which will accomodate 8 people for dinner/tasting, but features a glass floor with all the wine cellar underneath.

Then we travelled to Peter Lehmanns for lunch and a tasting. I was particularly taken, as always, with the Mentor, 8 Songs, Clancy’s and the always great Stonewell. I will be retasting the Lehmann reds while in Queensland, so will report in more detail then.

Suffice to say, I will try to buy some of these for the Aussie Club winecellar.

Our first trip after lunch was to the latest “Hot” winery in Australia, Torbreck. We purchased some of their outstanding “The Struie” from Devines for our cellar a few months ago. Cellar Door Manager Scott Trezise took us on a brief tour of the operation which is quite unique. They leave the vines in a bush style rather than pruning heavily. They focus their attention on growing great grapes to produce their array of outstanding wines.

Wines to look for are the Descendant, the Factor, the RunRig ($300. a bottle in Edmonton) The Struie which we have in our club cellar is 100% shiraz with grapes from both the Barossa and Eden Valleys.

We later made a short stop at Veritas vintners, where the only wine that grabbed us was a tawney port which they no longer produce.

We also made a brief stop at an interesting winery called Rusdan, which is trying to specialize in zinfandel. They may be entering the Canadian market later this year. Their Zin was top-notch and well worth the visit.

Will bring you up to date on our other visits in a few days

Marty Larson