cognitivebottletherapy

2019 Château d’Anglès La Clape Classique

Yet another of the Dan’s direct imports. 40% Syrah, 40% Grenache and 20% Mourvèdre. The 2018 was so good, I’ve had three bottles. Keenly interested to see what a new vintage brings. Again, spotlessly clean. Big waft of woody herbs, garrigue, spice, very dark berries and good for you prunes. Same in the sipping with some blackberry jam. Very ripe, dry skin flavours all polished and contained in a brusque sweep of astringently drying acidity and furry dry grape skin tannin. The tannins maybe suggest a bit of woody stem or oak tannin, hard to tell. If the 2018 had the lithe and svelte perfume of Syrah from the north end of the Rhône, this vintage looks solidly Mediterranean, warm and spiced. Chunky in fruit, trimmed in the making, rough with the smooth. Good value again.

14% alcohol. Diam. $20.90.

91 maybe 92 points and worth another if it becomes a Dan’s member’s’ special.

2020 Bodegas Rectoral de Amandi Matilda Nieves Mencia Ribeira Sacra DOP

Another of July’s Dan Murphy seven. There’s a sticker on the neck boasting 97 points from Decanter for a simple unoaked red from a relatively large Galician conglomerate of five wineries. What room is there left on the points scale for a DJP La Faraona? Who knows? It opens with a bit of sulphury reduction, as Ribeira Sacras often do. Left to catch its breath and there’s typical cool, tart red fruit. Even ripeness, no jammy flavour nor any green tones. Savoury texture being a huge part of the Spanish wine experience, a rise of silty tannin and saliva drooling acidity carries that crisp fruit. It seems strictly made. Just medium bodied as Ribeira Sacra should be, there’s little if any of the smoky wildness of a deeply complex Guimaro version. Probably made in much larger quantities with an eye on the balance sheet. Nonetheless finding a very enjoyable Galician Mencia for $20 is something. Probably could be persuaded to try another when it’s had a chance to settle in a month or two.

There was a glass left after four days, the bottle kept in the fridge apart from being sloshed around in an esky on a two hour drive. Barely oxidised, that evenly ripe fruit is even more mouthwateringly delicious. I’ll try and find a couple more now. There’s something about Mencia I really like. Probably getting closer to the Decanter score.

13% alcohol. Screw cap. $19.90

90 points to start, rocketed up to 91 after a day or two. Maybe it’s a Decanter typo?

December 2025 update. Clearance special at Dan’s. Still a pleasant glass of fading berries at first but the early gloss is dulling. It lost all interest the second day. Some Mencia doesn’t get better in the bottle.

88 points, but sliding.

2020 Cantine Settesoli Mandrarossa Frappato Costadune Terre Siciliane IGT

Another of Dan’s July budget savers. A close up bottle image rather than repeat the seven bottle line up again. Pretty colour label. Italy’s heritage of what seems like thousands of grape varieties is great territory for the nerd, guilty. I just about remember a tasty Planeta bottle of Frappato in purezza and a Cerasuolo di Vittoria where it’s blended with stodgy old Nero d’Avola to bring perfume and life. Not to be confused with Cerasuolo d’Abruzzo of course which is a rosato made from Montepulciano. Love Italian convolution. Good to see this on Dan’s shelves then. Settesoli I also remember were a major player in Sicilian imports in the nineties. Judging from their website, they’re still commercially powerful. Well, this is nothing like the Planeta version I remember, it’s light of weight and took a hour or two to open up after seeming washy and a bit dilute at first. With air it’s seventies disco perfume time. Fragrant with musky rose water, raspberries, almost like a red version of one of those Muscat variations. Bit challenging and odd to the red wine drinker’s expectations. Second day and the perfume’s toned down a notch, more red fruit, sort of New World Pinot Noir in shape and texture but uniquely Frappato in flavour. Spice and volcanic rocks push against the perfume. Good smear of drying skin tannin and an incoming tide of firm acidity. It finally dawned that if you were to drink this fridge cooled with one of those western Sicily seafood couscous, then it would make sense, obvious really. The thought did also occur that if I had tasted this from one of those black Riedel tasting glasses, I think I might of thought it a white made with skin contact such is the surprise awaiting here. Warning, Australian Shiraz it is not.

13% alcohol. One of those odd conglomerate corks with a disc of cork glued each end, why bother? $17.10

Started 87 points but warmed up to an open minded 91. What’s Italian for vive la difference?

2020 Bodegas Borsao Vina Borgia Organic Garnacha

Another from the July Dan’s import selection. This one is first one on the left in the photo. Spanish Grenache is always a good place to find value but recently there’s been more sulphide reduction and this is already showing that box of spent matches smell. Hope it doesn’t go the way of Borsao’s recent vintage Tres Lagunas. If it does, it’ll be clearance special at a giveaway price too. Happily the reduction clears and it’s crisp Spanish Garnacha as we know it. Mid weight, tart dark berries and a rocky cut of fine skin tannin. The difference to good clean Rhône versions is noticeable. More sharp red fruit compôt, less Rhône sweet jammy berries. More austere cut, less soft chocolate tannin perhaps. Enjoy the freshness now maybe before it gets too volcanic? Nonetheless a sense of good fruit and place for not much, although there’s no reference to Borja on the label. A rebuy, maybe, probably not.

14.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $12.

88 points but needs air now.

2020 Guillaume Gonnet Le Petit Reveur Côtes du Rhône

It seems the most read posts here are for budget friendly direct imports from the empire of Dan’s and the odd Aldi surprise. I try and make the pilgrimage to the old Alphington barn of Dan once a month for a six or so buy in an attempt to even out the budget. It’s a shame the recently opened and more local Collingwood version is so woefully stocked. As there’s always an odd compulsion to taste the unknown, the selection veers towards the new and possibly interesting. This month I managed to find seven untried bottles from Spain, France and Italy for a meagre $132. Third from right in the above line up and it’s 85% Grenache with the rest Syrah. This little dreamer hoped Le Petit Reveur wouldn’t turn into a nightmare. It didn’t. Initially jammy ripe with cherry, plum and Mediterranean scrubby flavours, it changed up a gear with a day’s air. The ripeness still as much as you’d want but the fruit’s deeper, kirsch and chocolate, spiced and carried on cocoa tannin, all trimmed with a good swish of satisfying ripe acidity. A special mention for how clean and tasty. Definitely think it’s at its best now. Time will only make things more dull and gummy maybe. Nonetheless, another one wouldn’t be a chore and you can’t say that about all my recent choices.

14% alcohol. Screw cap. $19.00

90 value points.

2019 Domaine des Closiers Saumur Champigny Expression

A newish enterprise with wise investment across vineyard, viticultural and winemaker input it seems. 15 hectares of oldish Cabernet Franc on good limestone and clay soil. A viti expert from Roche Neuve, one of my favourite reliably clean producers and winemaking input from the famous Clos Rougeard. No small investment or expectation then. The added recommendation from Randall’s, simply put as effing amazing, tipped me in. Made with no recourse to oak suggested there could be an absence of the oft encountered Loire horse stable held together by a dirty band aid…er…terroir. And joy, spotlessly clean powerful but even aromas of great Cabernet Franc. Raspberry, leaf and fruit. Darker fruit and sparkling pale limestone in the rain. Initially seemed to show a bit too much gloss of slippery ripeness but as air worked its magic, the fruit cooled to a fresh mouthful of perfectly ripe raspberries, sweet green leaves and chalky minerals, that word again. Inadequate but… Concentrated and intense. Long and measured. Power supported by a wave of ripe grape skin tannin indistinguishable from a tug of sweet ripe acidity. Beautiful grapes and no mucking about.

14% alcohol, quite something for the latitude. Cork. $55ish.

93 points and hooray for medium weight delicious purity.

2019 Giant Steps Pinot Noir

Nice to see a bit of clarity in labelling. You don’t have to declare grape ingredients below 15% on a label under Australian wine rules but here it’s noted there’s 8.5% Central Otago Pinot Noir as well as the majority Yarra Valley. Kudos for rigour. Sort of apposite to the last Fairbank post as the winemaker has made the move from there to here. Doubly so as both wines seem to be honest, no fiddling expressions of grapes, season and place. Perhaps this hasn’t the weight and charm of that lovely 2015 vintage. Here there’s mint, a lick of Oz forest, sappy stems and wild strawberries. Some lifted perfume, almost incense or joss stick like. Darker fruit emerges. Just enough flavour to buffer the slightly green stem and acid structure which dries things up enough to warrant another sip or bite of food. Must say I do enjoy Yarra Pinot when it’s young and fresh. Maybe with a bit of Otago richness too? Again a good drink not trying too hard to impress.

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $30 on special.

91 points.

2018 Fairbank Syrah

From an estate born of what seems equine wealth. Must admit never having been to a horse race, mystery to me. Victoria appears littered with horse breeding places involving considerable amounts of money. Hope it’s a bit more profitable than the struggle to make a small fortune in wine after investing a large one. Opens well after half an hour or so with clean, sweet sappy herbs and whole berry brightness. Gentle medium weighted core of savoury spices, bay leaf and red berries. Seems to isolate the good flavours in middle Victorian Shiraz without being over ripe or over oaked. The tannins are stem woody with fresh acidity tucked in nicely. Second day, the fruit gets a bit richer into plum flavours and a waft of retro nasal red fruit perfume. Touch of road tar on a warm day too. Made in a way that gets the best of the ingredients.

14% alcohol. Screw cap. $25ish.

92 solid points.

2016 Domaine Leon Barral Faugères

The usual trawl of the auction website and a new producer, yet the label looks vaguely familiar. Maybe a memory nudge from times inhabiting those cavistes of baffling choices in Paris. It’s been a while since the last happy browse with data charged mobile google capabilities. There’s some good words about M. Barral. True artisan with old vines in places where they’re happy and no social media. Lots of old vine Carignan here, half the blend with the rest Grenache and Cinsault. It was a bit pongy to open. My first couple of sniffs had me thinking of the sweet earthy smell of well tended farmyard. In one of those lovely moments of shared olfactory recognition, my dearest reckoned, “this smells just like a farmyard but in a really good way”. Much cleaner to taste. High tones of lavender, Mediterranean scrubby bits, and very ripe, squished up berries. Powerful tug of fine limestone tannin. It’s odd how wine brings rocks to mind, it’s a struggle to put it any other way. As it airs, beguiled by cool sweet berries, sweet roast meat, dark but bright with mouthwatering acidity and more of that limestone tannin. A natural wine feel, close to the edge but no wobble, just standing with feet firmly planted in the soil.

14% alcohol. Cork. $47 at auction.

94 points.

2016 Luke Lambert Nebbiolo

I’ve read that Luke Lambert is obsessed by Nebbiolo, sensible fellow. This is possibly the best non Italian version for me, albeit from a pretty limited sample range. Still some cheerful crimson colour without the tiring orange seen in high PH Australian versions. Touch of typical Luke Lambert reduction clears quickly to fresh sour cherry, raspberry and sweet earthy fruit. Hint of regional mint and forest. The shape is beautiful. Crackling fresh ripe acidity and the sort of ripe, sweet and melting tannin that’s rarely seen in Australian wine. Oddly but in some way not surprisingly, the freshness of fruit and soft depth of tannin remind me of Yarra Cabernet. Obviously not the flavours. Something in the valley season seem to soften the green hardness both these varieties can show in places where they ripen too quickly perhaps? Probably a daft generalisation but looks good here. Like the Socceroos of past generations, there’s quality here to play at international level without embarrassment. Particularly at the price point.

14% alcohol. Diam, extremely difficult to get out of the narrow necked old style Bordeaux bottle and even harder to get back in. $60.

95 points, even in an away game at the Stadio degli Alpi.