Category: Western Victoria

2019 The Story Port Campbell Sauvignon Blanc

It had to happen eventually. I’ve managed to avoid drinking, let alone buying, anything Sauvignon Blanc for a very long time. The Story offered some mysterious dozens for $150 a while ago. Two bottles of this were included among the usual red favourites. Oh well, warm evenings with friends who aren’t quite as horribly fussy or even tolerate pungent SB would be a chance to rid myself of such vinous horror. Or so I thought. Finally opened one a while ago for a lovely neighbour whose only fault would appear to be actually buying and drinking the smelly stuff. Always willing to taste to just confirm my bias and goodness, it was delicious. So, the second bottle over a couple of locked down days and it would put many a vaunted white Bordeaux to shame. Sweet core of green herby things and fruit like gooseberry, you can feel the spring sap rising. All wrapped up in honeyed apricot perfumed with something like elderflower in an English hedgerow. A real density of quality grapes. A touch of caramel oak and oxidative making lift the end. Cream textured glide and mouth pleasing acidity beg another sip. Only 880 bottles it seems. Glad to have had two. Rule one of wine, never assume. What next, Australian Pinot Gris or Viognier?

13.5% alcohol. Screw cap. $30 RRP and a bargain at that. Part of the mixed mystery case and a steal.

93 points but 94 would be reasonable.

2012 The Story Port Campbell Pinot Noir

Probably the last thing the world needs at the moment is a daft wine blog adding to our collective angst. Not much left to say except to express gratitude for good health, a kind companion, friends and a heart warming drink cloistered in a comfortable home. This terrific version from a remote Pinot outpost, where grape growing must be more than tricky due to some fickle weather, really shows some depth and cut. In local Australian terms there’s a proven Pinot place in rural Gippsland to the South East of Melbourne that can express the grape with dark cherry and earthy wild strawberry with a almost fragrant rose geranium edge. A long way west along the wild coast, the same flavours seem to thrive. This is beautifully clean, quite ripe for such a cool windswept landscape and deep at its core with paradoxically soft but firm tannin and acidity. A few years rest and it’s all mellow and sweetly just starting to autumnally decay. Sort of appropriate for the time of year and the drinker. Nice story again, Rory.

13.5% alcohol. Screwcap. About $30 a year or several ago.

94 points.