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This product contains the following items: |  | » 2 x Yalumba Bush Vine Grenache 2008
Class 19 18.5 Gold. This wine won the only Gold medal in its class. Few winemakers handle Grenache better than those at Yalumba and they’re still pressing the boundaries. Apart from fruit selection, the secret to this wine is probably either one of or all the following initiatives. Partial de-stemming, the controlled use of wild yeast and skin contact for select parcels post fermentation of 3 months. Pretty brave, innovative winemaking which presents us an outstanding wine with an attractive deep red colour with purplish tints. The nose is strongly scented and aromatic, reminiscent of berries and cinnamon and the palate is simply bursting with flavour that is well held with good acidity and a firm tannin finish. It’s fine to drink now, but will be even better after 2-5 years of careful cellaring. | |  | » 2 x Totino Estate Adelaide Hills Paracombe Shiraz 2007
Class 18 18.5 Gold. The legendary Max Schubert reckoned that the shiraz from Paracombe in the Adelaide Hills was an important ingredient of Grange and other famous Penfolds red wines of the nineteen sixties. I suspect that this may have helped encourage Don Totino to purchase and re-birth this old, derelict vineyard some years ago. He has been well rewarded. This wine certainly exudes the minty, peppery characters so typical of the region, as well as equally attractive hints of dark chocolate and blackberries. This is a fairly full bodied but elegant wine, showing fruit characters of plums and dark cherries and it has a luscious mid palate of fine tannins leading to a grippy, dusty oak finish. Enjoy now, but if you can be patient, put some away carefully and forget it for 10 years or so. | |  | » 2 x Robert Oatley Cabernet Merlot 2007
Class 21 18.5 Gold. This radical blend of grapes from opposite sides of the country actually makes quite a lot of sense. Mudgee has a long history of making richly flavoured, age-worthy cabernets that if anything can be a little too earthy, so the winemaker went to Margaret River, a region producing some of the country’s finest cabernets, selected a parcel of cabernet and blended it with merlot grapes from Mudgee to make this fascinating dual region wine. The cabernet component was picked at optimum ripeness and hand sorted to remove any lesser berries and the Mudgee merlot was from a single vineyard, harvested at its peak. The wines were fermented in small tanks, with 10-12 days maceration, and then pressed off skins into French oak where they underwent the secondary malolactic fermentation followed by maturation for 16 months in a combination of new and up to four year old barrels. The typical minty green cabernet characters are softened and enhanced by the rich tobacco leaf character of the merlot, presenting an outstanding wine which will impress. This is quite a big wine and will continue to develop for at least ten years. If you want to drink it now, slosh it into a decanter and giver it some aeration. It will be even better for it. | |  | » 2 x Blue Pyrenees Shiraz 2006
Class 18 18.5 Gold. This wine was produced from parcels of fruit grown on low-yielding exposed vines creating a wine of intense flavours, naturally soft tannin and the classic rich shiraz structure. The growing season was a classic, providing ideal winter and spring conditions, finished by a warm dry summer and autumn which gave excellent ripening conditions. Maturation for 24 months in a combination of new, one, and two-year-old French and American oak barriques has added softness, texture and complexity to a wine of impressive concentration. You’ll find characters of charry vanillan oak with sweet ripe blueberry fruit and a touch of pepper and spice on the nose, leading to a complex palate of ripe blueberry fruits, with a rich mid-palate of chocolate, vanilla, and a hint of regional spice. The soft tannin structure of this wine allows lingering fruit flavours to shine throughout the long dry finish. Don’t be shy about cellaring this one carefully for 10 or so years. | |  | » 2 x Gammons Crossing Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2007
Class 15 18.7 Gold. Made by the Flint family from fruit harvested from their own vineyard, this wine was the highest pointed in its class, beating well known brands from Coonawarra, Margaret River and Reynella. It’s not often the judges comment on individual wines, however they did single out the Gammons Crossing for their comment; “Top wine a lovely example of varietal cabernet sauvignon”. I think you’ll agree. There is an abundance of blackcurrant and mint characters so typical of the Coonawarra region. Colour and flavour have been extracted during fermentation with the use of heading down boards to maintain skin contact and the wine has been allowed to finish fermentation in French oak, before maturing for a further 16 months in the same barrels. Although this wine will be great drinking anytime in the next 10 years, patience will be rewarded with careful cellaring. | |  | » 2 x Leconfield Richard Hamilton Gumprs Shiraz 2008
Class 18 18.7 Gold Trophy for Best Shiraz in Show. No, I haven’t misspelled it. Gumpr was the original owner of the Salopian Inn, a well known local restaurant adjacent to Leconfield’s McLaren Vale vineyards. Only a portion of the fruit comes from this vineyard though, the rest from select parcels of fruit from various vineyards in the district. This is an excellent example of McLaren Vale shiraz, exhibiting the peppery mint characters so often found in the fruit from this region. Allowing a small portion of the ferment to finish in new oak has further complexed the wine with attractive vanillin, cedar and cinnamon characters. Maturation in new and up to four year old French and American oak barrels has allowed all this complexity to marry, forming a quite complex wine which will be even better drinking in 2-10 years. | |
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