Australia and January Wine
Posted: 1st February 2023
You catch me writing, swaddled in a collection of hats, coats and blankets, or periodically burning £20 notes like some caricature ‘Buller Boy’ – but more to feed a feeble heat to this draughty house than show off my huge wealth to the ‘proles’ tramping along outside. In the circumstances it is good to conjure up other stereotypes: Australia, for example, and think of Bondi beach-boys and girls, and warmth, and sun, and maybe even wine. O to be able to say ‘I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.’
Wine helps. Wine is captured sunlight, and while you drink it you can fantasise about warmth. Australia is a fairly hot place in January, and it is fitting perhaps that the Australia Day tasting is the first major event in the calendar of the New Year.
I have neglected Australia in recent years, and as I walked through the room, I caught glimpses of half-remembered friends, whom I used to see often thirty years ago and more. Some of the wines were the same, others quite new. I stopped, for example at Tahbilk. When I visited Château Tahbilk in Victoria in 1990 I was shown Shiraz vines planted in 1860 which looked as solid as trees. They were older than any equivalent Syrah vines in Europe. There is still about half a hectare of these, but the wines were not at the tasting. That wine I enjoyed then costs a small fortune now. The stress at the tasting was on the antiquity of their Marsanne vines, planted in 1927 and the good, nutty wines they produced from them.
Jim Barry is one of the most famous producers in the Clare Valley. This was an impressive collection, from the crisp 2021 Assyrtiko, to the peppery 2017 Shiraz and the opulent 2019 Shiraz/Cabernet. There were a couple of single-vineyard vines: the more refined 2020 Watervale Shiraz and The cool, cherry-scented 2016 McRae Wood Shiraz.
I thought I had better go and make my peace with Brian Croser whom I offended once in a light-hearted article I wrote for Punch (those were the days). I headed for Petaluma, but it transpired that Croser didn’t work there anymore. The wines were not disappointing, even if I might have wanted a little less ‘cat’ in the White Label Sauvignon Blanc. Chardonnays were offered either partly or fully oaked (cheaper White versus more expensive Yellow Label). Both worked; and there was an austere but good Yellow Label Riesling from the Clare Valley.
Tahbilk seems to have ceased to be a château, but Château Tanunda in the Barossa is still flying the flag for France in that respect (I cried as Napoleon is meant to have shouted when he glimpsed Schloss Finkenstein in East Prussia: ‘Enfin un château!’). Tanunda is an example of the more slimmed down style of Australian wines around today, quite the opposite to the Barossa I knew back then. I liked two Cabernets: Matthews Road and The Château, but the best for me was the 2019 Shiraz made from 50-year old vines, with its rich, almost sweet fruit.
Some of the best Australians are imported by Liberty Wines, such as Shaw + Smith in the Adelaide Hills, with their very measured Sauvignon and suave M3 Chardonnay. Here were also two bottles of Henschke wine, the Johann’s Garden GSM (Grenache, Shiraz, Mataro – or Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre – a Southern Rhone-style blend) and a sensational 2018 ‘Keyneton Euphonium Shiraz Cabernet’. There is still a bottle of 1988 somewhere around here. I must drink that. There was even my old friend Nine Popes from Charlie Melton. My last two bottles were polished off in the 2019 Paris heatwave.
The last time I went to Australia was in 2004? I had been invited to taste 50 vintages of Wynn’s Coonawarra Shiraz. My host then was Sue Hodder, who is about to make her thirtieth vintage at the estate. At the cheaper end, the 2021 Shiraz was raisiny, ‘The 2020 Siding’ Cabernet rather smoky. I preferred the 2019 Gables which had more sweet charm. The 2019 Michael Shiraz was a big leap up in price (£80). It was impressively massive and smooth. The 2019 John Riddoch Cabernet (£125) was had plenty of character like a rich fruitcake. I tried the 1992 as well. It was distinctly earthy.
Australia has its classics, like old, unoaked Hunter Valley Semillon, for example, and the wonderful ‘liqueur’ wines of Rutherglen. There were so many serious wines at the tasting that I neglected and I felt a little naughty slipping away to try a few on the Awin Barratt Siegel stand: a fine Muscat à petits grains rouges from Campbells with an aroma of dried apricots, and its earthy, more expensive stablemate. The best for me was the Muscat from Stanton and Killeen, which was all coffee and mint. Then I fell into a long chat with Michael Awin about Peter Lehmann and some of the other great characters of Australian wine – almost all of them are long gone.
Besides the big tasting, I have had other Australian wines, such as the 2021 Taperoo Valley Chardonnay with its tastes of peaches and boiled sweets and the 2017 D’Arenberg McLaren Vale GSM, a tarry, raspberry-scented wine with a whiff of mint. The best wine I have had at home this month was the 2020 Naive Grenache from Château Maris in the Minervois. It is slightly ‘porty’ and throws its chest out a bit, but it is full of black fruits – cherries in particular – toast and game. Best of all is its frank expression. Despite its name, it is not a bit shy and in this cold January it is hugely warming.
