cognitivebottletherapy

2018 Tertini Yaraandoo Vineyard Riesling

Visiting a cellar door can be an opportunity to get a glimpse of the people behind the business and their feelings toward the land they farm. A 2019 road trip to Sydney stopped off in pretty Bowral and a bit of research suggested Tertini near Mittagong were making some of the more interesting wine thereabouts. A warm welcome, it’s a cold place up in the Southern Highlands, and a cosy seat to taste their range was a good start. This Riesling was first in their line up and looked good. The rest of the range didn’t quite hit the same level. In hindsight that’s probably more a measure of how good is their Riesling rather than any lack of quality in their other efforts. Hitting a cellar door without context and pro levels of tasting can make benchmarking difficult. Lovely passionate people staffing the cellar door, they were happy to answer a daft geeky question by finding the winemaker not far away, saying he loves to talk about his efforts. More than three years later and curiosity about my measly single bottle buy got the better of me. Clean and inviting smells of ripe lime with a burr of white peach, sort of coriander pesto, all round and full in the middle. Obviously carefully grown and picked fruit. Just so ripeness, gentle soft acidity leaves a mouthwatering finish. The second day and even more evidence of very good grapes with the flavours deepening and resolving into more pleasure. Really delicious surprise. By way of comparison perhaps more round and succulent like Victorian or Canberra’s better Rieslings than the lime and citrus drive of South Australia? Or just faithful to the Southern Highlands and a care for a good vineyard? Whatever, the sort of cellar door visit that doubles the pleasure, then and now.

12.4% alcohol. Screw cap. $35 I think?

Started 93 points but happy with 95 second day.

2004 Domaine de l’Oratoire St Martin Cairanne Réserve des Seigneurs

Another old bottle from a favourite Rhône producer. One of those gambles at auction, the older the wine the more the risk? Bacchus smiled on my willingness to waste $30 dollars or so and the cork came out in one piece with barely a stain. Lovely smells of old cherry liqueur and a well cared for old house, polished furniture and a recently used sooty brick fireplace. Sweet and healthy garden soil, a touch of dark chocolate and very ripe strawberries maybe. Firm skin tannin and acidity softened by balsamic alcohol warmth. Gentle decay with age which may be the best we can hope for? There’s a feel of just fading lush sweetness and softness that brings to mind Priorat perhaps. A glimpse of Rhône history as I think the Alary brothers who produced such great value over the years have retired without family willing to take over their labours. Their twenty hectares are now owned by Château Mont Redon of CNdP. Things change.

14% alcohol. Cork. $32 at auction, just in time.

93 points.

2020 Borsao Clásico Garnacha

November, another month and another six bottles from the empire of Dan. One old shop in the inner Melbourne suburb of Prahran that became a nationwide stupor market. Escaped this time with six bottles for $96. Immediately ready to go, nuts, spice and sweet cherry and berries with a swell of perfumed ripe fruit to finish. Just medium bodied and gently washy. Countered with a meaty and rocky drying skin tannin and firm acidity. Second day the meaty element becomes a more sulphide driven bitterness. Borsao have some great fruit of immense ripeness and a little sulphide can add a savoury note to stop the surge of sweet berries from overwhelming. Some will find this an attractive balance. For me just too bitter and recent Borsao bottles have just got more reductive over a couple of years. The sort of nitrogen deficit that can be fixed with a bit of winery fiddling. Or work in the vineyard a better option? It was a delicious drink when first opened and great value. Bit silly to over analyse such simple cheap pleasure at the table really.

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $8.95 in a six.

90 points day one, 88 day two.

2020 Oakridge Over the Shoulder Cabernet Merlot

Last bottle from the Dan Murphy’s October six buy and in some ways the best. Well, that’s if you’re convinced the Yarra Valley is best suited to the noble Cabernet family? Seems bouncy and keen to escape the bottle with a perfume of raspberries and blackcurrants, like a waft of passing aftershave but much nicer. An overlay of tobacco and green leaf, fresh and refreshing. Finished with a rich note of just turned sod for want of a better phrase. Mineral and sweet ripe tannin and acidity mingle well. The sort of fruit and earth you’d want from Bordeaux but closer to home and much better value.

13.3% alcohol. Screw cap. $19 Dan’s member special.

91 points.

2021 Bodegas Biurko Rioja Tempranillo Biurko

My inbox gets a bit clogged by all the retail wine shops, wholesalers, reviewers and wineries I seemed to have invited to send emails. A favourite importer, The Spanish Acquisition, happily offer some irresistible, and perhaps Monty Python inspired, unexpected discount clearances. Six packs of your choice of colour for $90 was too good to miss. Thanks to a good friend and fellow wine nut some good things landed on his veranda to share. This is just the sort of energetic blast of clean fresh joven that scratches that need for red wine itch. Tempranillo seems to cover the soft spice and aroma of things like Shiraz with the grunt of Cabernet all in one go. Bursts forth with just picked red berries, very ripe strawberries and a bit of blueberry. Flicker of nutmeg spice. Lots of extract and some depth. Richness cut by mountain sparkling acidity and bristling skin tannins. A lick of savoury sulphide bitterness too that might get a bit too noticeable with time in the bottle but so good for now, why wait? Yet another dream of one of those Spanish bars, a glass of this and a tapa of Iberico, one day.

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. Normally about $26 to $30 but for $15 brilliant.

91 points.

2020 Famille Sambardier Cuvée des P’tits Jean VdF Gamay.

More from the random Dan’s six. The 2018 was worth a review, didn’t seem to be trying too hard, and prompted a look at a new vintage, albeit nearly twenty percent more expensive. Opened with the same edgy lift as 2018, some leafy smells worryingly into mulch and decomposition. Air was its friend again as some attractive tart raspberry and cherry fruit battled through the compost aided by good crisp acidity. There’s an authentic feel as it doesn’t look mucked about with in the making. As it’s now over fifteen of our Australian dollars now, the Mommessin and Fessy alternatives maybe look a better option at Dan’s but it drank well, particularly with a bit of something to eat.

13% alcohol. Screw cap. $17.10 in a six.

88 points

2021 Michele Chiarlo Palás Barbera d’Asti

The 2019 was such a good, straightforward bright and light crunchy fruit effort. This new vintage is even better. First day and it looked as simply delicious as the 2019 but given 24 hours of oxygen and there’s good indication of how 2021 may justify the early praise. Such a pretty red purple colour in appearance and flavour if you can taste colours? Freshly squished berries, bramble jelly, wine gums and that sort of gently caramelised jam Barbera brings to mind. Not much tannin but a whoosh of tart and ripe acidity cleans out the mouth and leaves it watering for more. Such a good foil for pizza that it’s far too easy to eat and drink and repeat till it’s all gone. Simple pleasure indeed.

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $19 in a Murphy’s six.

91 points.

Of the others in this month’s Murphy trials….

2019 Cantina di Montalcino Rosso di Montalcino

Volcanic amount of sulphury reduction that didn’t really let go over two days. Underneath the smoke and bitter swell there’s some good acidity and Sangio tannin but it would have been good to actually taste it

14% alcohol. Diam. $26.60

87 points.

2018 Guillaume Gonnet Monsieur Grenache VdT

Oh dear, this is what happens when a lot of H2S turns into mercaptan. Filthy and undrinkable.

14% alcohol. Screw cap. $13 member’s special.

N R

2018 Julien Schaal Schoenenbourg Grand Cru Riesling Gypse

Jancis Robinson has been a favourite longer form writer for over thirty years. Her prose has an uncanny knack of making me want to go and search out a bottle. Prose which always flows well without cliches, worn figurative language and over used idiom. This maker’s stuff got effusive praise for great fruit and value. Googling, there were a few bottles at auction. Snagged one and here we went. Rich in petrol, sour apple and sweet pineapple at first, it turned into one of those brilliant whites that just get fresher and more even in the glass. A driving ozone freshness took control of bright Pink Lady apple and white peach. The structure supremely balanced between flowing positive acidity, pithy phenolic ripeness (time on skins?) and a glycerol glide. More glorious complications from a sense of powdery chalk and earth. Gypse is gypsum I think, auto suggested no doubt. Over three evenings, nothing budged, just deep complexity and power on pin point refreshment. Completely smitten, oh Jancis.

Just to add more surprise to the story, further googling showed this was available as a direct import from the Melbourne based on line shop that’s Vinomofo who are better known for clearing secret Shiraz at deep discounts. Sadly all the Julien Schaal had sold out. Looks like I’d better pay more attention.

13% alcohol. Diam, seems to fit those long neck Alsatian bottles well. $47 at auction.

95 points pushing 96.

2014 Eden Road Gundagai Cabernet Sauvignon

A quick break on the road from Melbourne to Sydney is perhaps not the terroir you’d expect to produce interesting Cabernet. Always alert to this producer’s wine, when a bottle came up at auction a quick search on Winefront and a great review prompted a bid. Took a while to shrug off a sleep in the bottle, then things flowed well. Just medium bodied, cool blackcurrant, sweet cherry and mulberry all controlled by dry, almost austere crushed rock skin tannin and a savoury ferrous twang. Lovely lacy acidity. A bit of fine dark chocolate too. No fruit bombing but proper dry claret. Sits well in my tucker box.

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $31 at auction.

94 points. They’re good those Winefront people.

2019 Pala i fiori Cannonau di Sardegna

A friend who’s much more energetic when it comes to battling those free retail tastings thoughtfully emailed his view of a Prince Wine Store event in deepest South Melbourne. The theme was wine from the European islands. What about Grenache from Sardinia I demanded? Seems there was some Cannonau as it is called thereabouts I was corrected. They included a not too bad one from a maker named Pala. New one for me I, my failing memory blanked. That’s two memory lapses about very important wine things. I should also pay more attention to bids at auction. Amongst them was this bottle from Pala, a welcome sort of coincidental memory fart for once. Just medium weight, a little developed, there were cherry syrup and red fruit things. A good clean crunch of, here we go again, rocky earthy minerals. I’m heartened proper describers of wine sometimes resort to those vague words. The earthy combination of flavour and texture seemed nicely sweet too. Lower acidity and glycerol smooth gave the feeling of gentle but still strong fruit quality. Nonetheless, a savoury tilt and those rocks made me think more of Spain than the Rhone or South Australia. Time for more Grenache journeys.

13.5% alcohol. Nomacorc sugar cane seeking closure. $22 at auction which is a bit less than retail. Phew.

91 points.