cognitivebottletherapy

2014 Pierre Matrot Meursault Perrières 1er cru

The second premier cru White Burgundy post and maybe the last unless cellardoor.co wrongly price a mixed six pack again. Very lucky to have spotted a half dozen from France for $165 which included this, a CNdP, a Champagne and three other OK bottles. Didn’t last long on the site before the sold out sign went up. Worth it too, as this opened beautifully with aromas of chestnut honey, hazelnut and…er..muesli, with a touch of lanolin sulphide. Meursault auto suggestion perhaps, honey and nuts? The same flavours across the palate with a profound cut of cool clean limestone acidity. Barely any sweet fruit flavour other than a hint of fig and quince. Enough to make you want an ancestral castle cellar full of such fleeting pleasure. Wonder if the Waughs, Evelyn and Auberon that is not the cricketers, would have wine blogged? Better prose than this.

13% alcohol. Cork. $27.50 on a very streaky average.

95 points.

2018 Black Sheep Yarra Valley Cabernet Sauvignon

A cleanskin of sorts from Boccaccio Cellars and so maybe from Hoddles Creek? A wine by any other name would smell as good? Classic leafy, red fruited gentle Cabernet with some serious acidity that’s still just the right side of ripe in a Bordeaux or Loire cool year way. Not sour. Gravelly too. Good mouthwatering drink and tastes like it hasn’t been mucked around with, astonishing for $8. Not going to appeal to those used to big boy Shiraz.

13.1% alcohol. Screwcap. $8.

88 points.

2008 Seppelt St Peters Grampians Shiraz

In theory from a very old vineyard in Great Western that’s on the Heritage Council of Victoria database. 2008 was a memorable season as the first Monday of the month hit 35 degrees and then got a degree hotter each day for a week, the promised cooler weather receding with each daily forecast. This dark and forbiddingly dense wine shows how those old vine berries hung on and still produced. For the first two days of opening, it just stayed impressively ungiving, dusty and lacking fruit sweetness. Palpable flavours of dry bushland baking in crackling heat. Dry dark rocks and road tar. The remaining half ullaged bottle then enjoyed a two hour car trip getting sloshed around tight Ocean Road bends. So, three days open, shaken and still no oxidation! In fact some sweet blackberry fruit emerged from the dark carbon steel depths. Drying oak flavours and tannin only help to emphasise the frown. Incredible tannin of dry sun shrivelled skins too and some slightly poking out acid. Probably going to live for many years in a cranky surly way. Me too, hopes.

14% alcohol. Screwcap. $60 approx.

93 dark and serious points.

2017 Piero Benevelli Langhe Rosso numero 3

If memory serves, tenuous but just possible, then this is the twins from Mondo Imports own dalliance with blending? 70% Barbera and 30% Nebbiolo combine seamlessly to make an extraordinarily delicious mouthful. Exquisitely balanced poise of floral perfume, brightest red fruit and cool Langhe mineral. Maybe the warmer year has pushed the Neb to be more friendly to the Barbera? Absolutely spotless and impossible to avoid another sip. Some wine demands unraveling and thought, some just need joyful drinking. This surely is the latter but as it’s Piemonte just a bit of the former? Bravissimo, D’Anna ragazzi, best one yet.

14% alcohol. Cork. $35 and a bargain.

93 points but plus for sheer lip smacking glee.

2010 Passopisciaro Sicilia IGT

From the edge of the Etna volcano where they clamber up and down tending their Nerello Mascalese vines. No enological slickness to this indeed. A medicinal tang from the less than scrupulously clean wood and a bit of lift but unusually tolerable. In fact they’re just the sort of blemish that make a French film star interestingly full of character rather than the blandness of a Hollywood performer. It’s probably the sheer strength of cherry rich and ethereally mineral fruit that that makes this normally grumpy fault zealot want another mouthful. What the Japanese call Wabi Sabi, imperfection being essential to beauty? Age seems to have melded fruit and structure but kept that beautifully dry tug to refresh. The wonky bits are really just seasoning. Hints of blood orange juice too. So good with a oily pasta, of course. Surprised to find this so delicious. The teetering balance of a lot of great fruit and a tiny bit of naughty.

14% alcohol. Cork. $50 approximately?

93 non technical points.

2016 Bruno Rocca Barbera d’Alba

Modernist, sweetly fruited and with a bit of lift to tickle the fancy. Very ripe, clean and crunchy cherries and plums but with just enough Langhe earthy stones and rocks to cut across. Slick and svelte but its roots still firmly in the Piemontese soil. Perhaps a bit more savouriness and austerity would be good. Nonetheless delicioso. The Bordeaux shaped bottle indicates the move away from rustic traditions perhaps? Bowl of tomato sauced pasta? Essential.

14.50% alcohol. Cork. $42.

91 points.

2009 Best’s Bin No. 1 Great Western Shiraz

A bottle of wine from the pile of cardboard boxes euphemistically called a cellar and made from fruit harvested in a hot dry year, its time had come. Rich blackberries and that camphor and old leather bottle development. Clean as an onsen bath and full of rich, black treacle fruit, it’s pulled back by some savoury, dusty earth. The tannin’s fallen back into the whole and it’s freshened by some acidity that’s just a bit too raucous for its own good, trying to shout over the warmth of the ethanol. Sure, you could say it’s a bit too engineered and warm but the blackberries and tar still speak of a warm, ancient and beautiful place. Don’t think you can enjoy wine properly without being a romantic hedonist. Go on, scoff.

14.50% alcohol. Screwcap. About $24 and not much more for the current release, under appreciated.

92 points.

2017 Terrason Cabernet Franc

A stuck record belief, well vinyl is trendy, that the Yarra Valley’s a proper place for the Cabernet family and a bit of a fascination with the Franc member led to this. Opens with a blast of smoky whole bunch, fresh green leaves and dark raspberry to blackcurrant fruit. Across the palate it’s at once light of being and then rich of fruit. Terrific mingling of acid, stem and skin tannin carry the fruit to a medium weighted finish. Special mention to the beautifully crafted oak inclusion which adds a delicious seasoning of savoury spice and a hint of chocolate. If there was just a bit more intensity to the fruit weight and this would be Cabernet aristocracy. For the money though, very good indeed and a bit cheaper than Cheval Blanc.

13% alcohol. Diam. $28 and well recommended by the Fish at Blackheart and Sparrow.

92 points.

2012 Hoddles Creek Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

Another Hoddles Creek from the cellar. Such irresistible value means there’s a lot stashed away. Better get drinking then. Just like its upmarket sibling the 1er version, it opens shyly and needs a lot of air and time to peek out from the reductive wine making. When it does decide to come out and play, there’s the usual cherries and undergrowth on a light to medium bodied swell of nicely judged tannin and fresh cleansing acidity. As always it possesses a coolness that’s perhaps rare in Oz Pinot. Subtle and valuing poise over brute size. Enough fruit to balance the touch of sulky sulphide winemaking which nonetheless avoids a too bitter ending. Twenty four hours after a brutal double decant and no hint of oxidation, goodness.

13.20%. Screwcap. $20 in 2013.

92 points.

2009 Curlewis Geelong Pinot Noir

The best sort of birthday present, a bottle of wine chosen with care and stashed away for much later. Five Australian Prime Ministers later. Must admit to a bit of prejudice about Geelong Pinot. Too many blazing hot, north wind days travelling through a dry flat landscape that didn’t exactly bring Burgundy to mind. Perhaps the Bellarine Peninsular gets a bit of air con from Port Philip Bay as this looked as pretty as an Upper Yarra Pinot opened at the same time. Resolved but hanging on well. Clean perfume of very ripe strawberries and darker plums cut with some green herb and some sweet compost development. Same across the tongue with an age softened rasp of just ripe acidity and perhaps some whole bunch tannin. Just a whisper of well handled oak adds the merest touch of sweet vanilla that’s sunk into the fruit with aplomb. From a hot drought ridden year with dreadful bush fires, this is a confounding success. A lot of care and love must have gone into the growing and making. A privilege to enjoy the hard work.

13% alcohol. Screwcap.

92 points.