McLaren Vale Wines – well nearly – 90 Mile Wines

Posted on June 19, 2011 by Lonely Grape

90 Mile Wines opened a cellar door in June 2010 in Middleton (between Victor Harbor and Goolwa) in the same complex as Blues Restaurant and Beach Huts.  I was lucky enough to catch up with these wines at the McLaren Vale Visitors Centre.  Steve is the usual cellar door host – if you visit say hello from the Lonely Grape.

The enterprise is the brain child from 3 mates – a vineyard owner, a marketing guy and a business tragic.  Their aim is to produce low cost wines that would appeal to every day drinking public, even to those new to wine drinking.  They also seem to be honing into the function market – so pricing is very important to this area.

90 Mile wines also have a wine club, called funnily enough the 90 Mile Club.  Membership is $20 per year and you get 25% discount on all wines purchased plus invitations to exclusive events (such as pre-release tastings).  Based on purchasing the Destination Shiraz all you need to do is purchase more than 2 bottles and your membership pays for it’s self.

Their web site link is here.

My take on the wines is that apart from the Destination Shiraz, the wines are clean and easy to drink.  I can see this maybe appealing to the younger set where wine is a new fashionable drink.  Maybe a semi sweet wine would be an addition to this range, if in fact that is what they are aiming for.  There are 3 ranges.  A cleanskin range which is priced to move high volumes.  The Beeamma Range from Padthaway and the 90 Mile Range from Fleurieu region (McLaren Vale, Currency Creek and Langhorn Creek).

Cleanskin Range

There was a couple of whites a rose and a couple of reds – I only tried one of the reds.

2009 Cabernet ($A78/dozen)

Good clean blackbery fruit with very soft tannins.  Nothing exciting here, but I have been told that at the price the wine has been walking out of the door.

90 Mile Range

This range is produced from grapes that come from the Southern Fleurieu Peninsula (Currency Creek, Mt Compass and down to Victor Harbor).

NV Brut Cuvee ($A14)

Made from McLaren Vale fruit with the aromas of clean stone fruit – which makes me think this wine is made from Chardonnay.  The flavors are clean and crisp stone fruit that will be drunk very cold at (as I have been told) many local weddings.  It is obvious that the wine is targeted to celebration events at a very reasonable price.

2010 Riesling ($A17)

I have had very few Rieslings from the region that I consider are good expression of the variety and this continues the trend.  Some orange rind and floral aromas that had little to consider for flavor.  Definitely a leave for me.

2010 Shiraz ($A20)

Made from Currency Creek fruit showing the lower end of the ripening scale.  Here the wine is all about cherries and spice to make it a little nice.  Nothing spectacular here but a number of people who are new to red wines may find this interesting.

2006 Destination Shiraz ($A40)

Hold the fort – this is a major step up and what a surprise after the rest of the range.  There is a level of complexity and interest not seen in the other wines.  16.5% alcohol and 2 years in American oak leave their mark.  Aromas seem to be loosing their fruit characters and are more leather and coconut.  The alcohol is not causing the nose to tingle – indicating a strength in the wine that helps balance the alcohol.  The flavors have lots going on – stewed satsuma plums, pepper, chocolate with that hint of coconut.  Again the alcohol is not prominent as the complexity copes so well with it.  Especially at the discounted price this wine is worth checking out.

Beeamma Range

They have a vineyard in Padthaway in the South East of South Australia.  The soils there are rich Terra Rossa soil on a limestone base – typical soil types for the Coonawarra and Padthaway regions.

2008 Chardonnay ($A14)

Straight from the fridge the aromas were masked, but as the wine warmed up I got some peaches and rockmelon.  I did not get any oak characters from this soft and easy drinking wine.  As expected there is melons and stone fruits here – not intensive fruit but at this cost one would next expect it either.

2008 Shiraz ($A14)

I got a greenness in the aroma profile of this wine that I do not normally find in Shiraz.  the greenness was combined with fresh plums, white pepper and cedar oak.  The wine has soft tannins though these tannins are quite drying on the teeth.  This continues the trend of soft easy drinking wine from the range.

2008 Cabernet ($A14)

Just lots of cherries and ribena (blackcurrent) fruit with the same soft tannins – just an easy drinking style.

2007 Cabernet Sauvignon ($A14)

This wine seems more complex than the 2008 wine.  Starting with some eucalypt aromas combining with plums (not what I would expect from a Cabernet).  Good black fruits (both blackberry and blackcurrent) with soft oak notes, that again have teeth drying tannins on the finish.

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Wine Marketing – QR Codes and Cellar Key

Posted on June 13, 2011 by Lonely Grape

Faith Shiraz - Cellar Key

Recently I had been hearing about a new way to have a unique identification of almost anything by QR codes.  I had seen some of these square set of dots and not thought much about about them.  Then out of the blue I see an on line initiative where a company called Cellar Key has arranged there QR codes and have a few wines that have their own QR code.  I was able to get a bottle of these and see this code for myself.  Well I thought now what?  So I downloaded a free iPhone App for a QR code reader and tried it myself.  So what happened, I hear you ask.

What does QR mean – well it is as simple as Quick Response Codes.  That is exactly what it is – very quickly a reader can put information at ones finger tips.

The QR reader when it scanned the code, directed the phone to a web site that showed me information about the wine that was in front of me.  Below is some of the information that was shown, including wine information, tasting notes plus winery data as well.

So what does this mean for us as consumers?

Well firstly, we can walk into a wine store and use a free resource to fins out a bit more about some of the wines in front of us, from the wide range of wines and labels that most of us have no idea what is likely to be in the label.  Sure Cellar Key only have a few wines this feature works for but one has to start somewhere.  I can see this concept getting stronger as we the wine punter sees how our iPhone (and I assume for Android phones as well) works.

Secondly, what does this mean for consumer products like wine – well the sky is the limit.  Special offers and data of all sorts could be delivered to your smart phone in an instant.  Who said I am too old to be interested in the new technology!

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McLaren Vale Wine – Scarce Earth Shiraz # 4

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Lonely Grape

Check out my other reviews of some of the Scarce Earth Project Single Vineyard wines here, here and here.

2009 Hugh Hamilton  Single Vineyard “Scarce Earth” Shiraz ($A50)

Hugh Hamilton Wines "Single Wire Vineyard"

The wine is made from grapes next to the scenically magnificent cellar door of Hugh Hamilton Wines.  The vineyard is on Biscay Clay soils or cracking black clay know in McLaren Vale particularly between McLaren Vale and Shiraz seems to thrive in these soils.  The Biscay Clays are known for their water holding properties.  When we these clays are just so sticky – you know the clays that just stick to your shoes and you seem to take on so much extra weight.  These same clays when dry will contract to produce quite large cracks.  This contraction comes from the clays loosing their “swelling” after absorbing significant water.  The wine I was tasting had been opened for 2 days and I though was looking the better for it – a look into the wine’s future indicating it would have a long cellaring life.

Straight away in the glass I though – “This is lovely”.  I was right.  Powerful aromas of licorice, pepper and chocolate wrapped up in an envelop of cedary fruit cake.  The flavors started with black olives through to dark chocolate and fresh plums.  Even though this wine could improve with cellaring, it can also be drunk now.  Drink with rich slow cooked comfort foods such as a cassoulet.

2009 Primo Estate Angel Gully Clarendon Shiraz ($A75)

Clarendon is a cooler sub region of McLaren Vale and is known for producing consistent high quality wines of substance.  This wine also fits that description.  The wine is named Angel Gully as this is the name of the road that runs past the vineyard.  The vineyard is dry grown which should also add to the concentration of flavors.

Unusually for a red wine, I get a sense of minerallity from the aroma.  This was combined with deep ripe black fruits with clove spice and an black olive finish.  The flavors were dominated by black fruits and olives integrated with oak and fruit tannins.  Very interestingly for me was the level of acid that dominated the finish took some of the fruit character away from that same finish.

2009 Chapel Hill The Chosen Road Block Shiraz ($A55)

The 2 wines from Chapel Hill were picked at the same time and given the same wine making techniques and wood treatments – and Oh so different wines.  The other standout is the packaging – the winemaker and viticulturalist have signed the labels.  I find this great as there is a real indication of both areas actually making the wine.  The other item was a “cut out” from the label showing the shape of the vineyard.

The Road Block is tendered using biodynamic principles and the wine has been aged for 18 months is French oak (mainly old oak) and there has been no fining or filtering to ensure a minimalistic approach to wine making with such wonderful fruit.  The vineyard soil is pebbly brown sandy loam over orange to yellow clays.

The aromas started a little closed but over about 20 minutes opened with blackberry and floral notes.  The flavors showed so much up front black fruits combined with significant layers of tannin.  I felt the wine was a little closed at this time but the elements are there to suggest in 15+ years time this wine will be a beauty – definitely on to put away.

2009 Chapel Hill The Chosen House Block Shiraz ($A55)

The House Block is brown sandy loam over brown earth with limestone.  Very different to the Road Block and only a few meters apart.  The same minimalistic wine making approach as for the Road Block wine above.

The difference starts straight away.  Aromas were more alive here with mulberries, olives and peaty notes.  Flavors of chocolate and plums combined with star anise that are, in a word, intense.  Lots of fined grained oak tannins and a lovely acid length.   This wine is also a keeper, though not as tight as the Road Block wine so I suspect closer to a 10 year life required to see this wine at it’s best.

2009 Coriole The Soloist Single Vineyard Shiraz ($A45)

I would have to say this wine was a disappointment as I feel the wine is unbalanced.  I have enjoyed many good Coriole wines over the years, but this was not one of them.  The aromas started with lovely candied plum wood but the real enjoyment stopped there – the flavors were just too dominated by oak influences.  There is no balance here.  Sorry guys, this one is not for me.  No balance now – no balance later!

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McLaren Vale Wine – Scarce Earth Project #3

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Lonely Grape

Another in the journey in tasting the wines from McLaren Vale’s Scarce Earth Project.  Check out my first post here and my second post here.

2009 Kangarilla Road Scarce Earth Project Shiraz (A$50)

Kangarilla Road Vineyard at Maslins Beach

Kangarilla Road 2009 Scarce Earth Project Shiraz

The grapes for this wine come from their Maslins Beach vineyard (see picture above).  The wine has spent 14 months in new french oak and has only been bottled for 6 weeks before tasting.  only 200 six packs have been produced of this wine.

The aromas were reminiscent of a spicy fruit cake – surprising especially sine the short time in the bottle.  Some McLaren Vale licorice was also evident.  As I was tasting the wine I could only think of juicy mulberries and plums.  The 14 months in new french oak was evident especially with that dry dusty finish.  Loads of various spices with white pepper, cardamom and star anise.  there was a pleasant persistance to the wine that will only improve with time.

 

2009 Sabella Vineyard Shiraz (A$30)

Firstly, I was so impressed that even though this wine has made the Rare Earth Project listing the retail price for the wine has remained stationary.  Directly from the winery this wine can be purchased for considerably less than the recommended retail.  When first opened the aromas are generous with plumy and cedary notes from the french oak.  The spice hint opens up considerably as the wine is left to breathe – cinnamon and cardamon combine well with the fresh dark plums.  I ahve to agree that the wine is typically McLaren Vale – generous mid palate, licorice, plums and oak cedar.  The whole is so much better than the individual parts as this melds into a long lasting sensation left for your mouth to enjoy well after the wine has gone.  I enjoyed the 2007 version of this wine and this is a step up from that one – well done Michael.

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McLaren Vale Wines – Scarce Earth Project Shiraz Part 2

Posted on May 22, 2011 by Lonely Grape

Welcome to my second part where I am tasting the 2009 McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Project Shiraz.  Check out my first part here.

2009 Shingleback Unedited Rare Earth Shiraz ($70)

Only 1250 bottles produces from this wine and of course they are only available from the cellar door located on the entrance to McLaren Vale.

Straight away one can sense a dark strength here and the aromas just showed this theme with dark Satsuma Plums and blackberries with a strong (but balanced) cedar from the good use of fine grained French oak.  Interestingly for me, I did not get the pepper and spice I was expecting.  Maybe this character was being masked by the oak derived cedar notes.  The flavors have 3 distinct components.  Firstly, the dark and intense berries.  Second, the oak strength that also shows up with the distinctive Mocha character.  Thirdly, the warming effect of the high alcohol.  The charm of the wine does not really come from these components, but from how well they come together.  Each element does not over awe the other – the high alcohol is not obvious as the fruit is so strong, the fruit soaks up the generous level of oak and the oak helps carry off the alcohol.

As expected this wine opened up with time in the glass so letting the wine breathe will definitely repay the drinker for the time spent.  Speaking of time – yes, time in the bottle would also be good.  This wine has the strength to carry off 10+ years of cellaring.

2009 Brash Higgins SHZ McLaren Vale Shiraz ($37)

This wine is currently for tasting at the Fall From Grace establishment in the Main Street of McLaren Vale.

Brash Higgins is a new venture of Brad Hickey and this is the first wine released from this new and exciting label.  The grapes for this wine come from the Thorpe Wines vineyard that has been recently named Omensetter Vineyard.  This vineyard, on the corner of California Road and Malpas Road must be a great patch of dirt, as the vineyard produces most of the raw product for Thorpe Wines.  The character I can only describe as iodine comes through in spades from the vineyard and this wine.  There is plenty of fruit character on the nose and the flavors, interestingly I get red fruits as well as black fruits.  Iodine and fruits mix well with the expected spices and musk.  The flavors scream strength with some wonderful layered tannins combining with the spiced fruits.  One of the tannin layers dries the teeth so well!  I can see this wine lasting a long long time, but as usual I do not think it will last that long.

2009 Five Geese McLaren Vale Reserve Shiraz ($48)

This wine is currently for tasting at the Fall From Grace establishment in the Main Street of McLaren Vale.

So far this is my favorite from the 2009 McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Project.  The vineyard is situated on the rolling slopes of Blewitt Springs (a sub region of the McLaren Vale region).  I have had wines from this label before.  The grape grower is Sur Trott and the wines are made at Boar’s Rock under the watchful eye of Mike Farmilo.  Aromas consisting of an infusion of berries, pepper and star anise wrapped up in an earthy and peaty envelope.  Flavors of black fruits, star anise mixed with soft tannins that show considerable depth.  The finish was not only lengthy, but mouth filling with a rare intensity.

Sure this wine is fantastic drinking now, but give it a few years of life in the bottle and you will be rewarded with the perfect match with a slab of roast beef.

The Five Geese website can be found here.

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McLaren Vale Wines – Scarce Earth Project Shiraz

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Lonely Grape

A couple of years ago I heard some people talking about a project – called the Rare Earth Project.  I did not know what it was about, but it had a few people excited about using this project to promote what is special about McLaren Vale.  Since then I had heard about the project and over time realised it was about promoting things that are special about McLaren Vale – Shiraz and the varied geological earth that makes up the Vale.

I soon found out that there was going to be promotion about various McLaren Vale Shiraz wines that showed regionality and an essence of the Vale.

I eventually found out the project had a new name – Scarce Earth.  The first wines for the project were to be from 2009 and they had to undergo 3 special tastings.  Wineries could submit barrel samples from single block wines (not single vineyard but single block). If the wines were judged to be worthy then second tasting was required and then a third from the final wines.  The tastings were undertaken by local masters of their wine making profession.  Only the best essence of the region was allowed to progress from one tasting to the next.

In what seemed to be a short time the wines were made available at various wineries and tasting places around McLaren Vale – as shown by the below map.  The map has been put together by McLaren Vale Grape, Wine and Tourism Association.  From May 1st until either the wines are sold out or the end of July comes around, these wines are available for tasting.

McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Map 2011

The 2009 Vintage has special significance to me as that was the year I worked at Fox Creek Wines – as the Laboratory Assistant.  So this also sparked my interest.  So, I have set myself a task to taste these wines and bring the tasting notes to you, the readers of Lonely Grape. I am going to write about one wine this time and I could not go past the Scarce Earth offering from Fox Creek.  The remainder of the wines I will report on in the coming weeks.
2009 Fox Creek McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Old Vine Shiraz ($50)
I feel like I have done some growing up with this wine.  I saw the grapes for this wine arrive at the winery and I took samples from the open fermenters through to transferring to barrel and checking the Malolactic Fermentation progress of the wine.  I also was party to a barrel tasting that included this wine about a month ago.
The grapes come from vines planted in 1910 and the wine has always shown something special.  There is intensity and complexity at every turn.  Please ensure you decant this wine to see it at it’s best.  I swirled this wine for about 20 minutes before it started to open up with dark cherries, red raspberries, plums with hints of cinnamon and cardamon spice with a final wisp of musk.  The intensity just kept building with layers of plum and dark cherry the same lovely spice .  The oak treatments are spot on with the oak not overpowering but the cedary tannins add much to the wine.  Of course the wine would last for many years in a cellar but it is already drinking well now – I suspect most of the very small production (about 50 cases) will be consumed while young.
Drink this wine with wonderfully complex and slow food – maybe Osso Bucco.
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McLaren Vale Wineries – Vintage Over, Now What?

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Lonely Grape

So Vintage is over and the hectic time of the winemakers year is over – well maybe but then how about this list of things to do with the new wines to be:-

  • Check the last open vessel fermentations and any extended macerations
  • red wine pressings
  • checking old barrels for use (cleaning if needed)
  • filling barrels
  • chemistry analysis checks
  •  monitoring final sugar fermentation in barrel
  • checking for malolactic fermentation starting
  • inoculating malolactic fermentation if required
  • cleaning the fermentation vessels
  • and so on (I think you get the picture)…………

For many of the wineries I visit that are small, backyard shed types, these tasks are undertaken by the winemaker who is also likely to be the vigneron so now that vintage is finished the labor intensive task of pruning the soon to be sleeping vines is to be organised.  How busy these guys are – and they still have to spend time marketing their wines as well!

During my visits to 2 small wineries in the last week, I also noticed and got involved in another very important task by these small wineries.  They have been quality grading various barrels of the “same wine”.  One of the tings I love about wine is the differences.  Every vintage is different, every bottle could be different, every wine region is different and every barrel can be different.  I was lucky enough to walk into a small winery when the wine maker was tasting  various barrels.  He was marking the barrels using chalk with a range from B- to A++.  I was able to join in and I found it fascinating – each barrel was different.  Different enough that I could understand the ranking strategy.  I also found it fascinating the discussion that included comments about how the overall wine would be better for blending components from the different barrels.

Another winemaker discussed the same ranking system where his blending strategy was that he blended the A wines together and the B wines were also blended into a second wine.  I tasted both final wines from the 2008 vintage and boy are they so different the acid balance and tannin structure are almost 2 ends of the spectrum.  Both wines will be very good – at the moment they are both suffering a little from bottle shock and need time to settle down.  When released in about 6 months time they will be wines to check again.

The 2 wineries indicated above are Petagna Wines and Danshi Rise – wines from these wineries can be found at Taste McLaren Vale’s web site (www.tastemclarenvale.com.au).

The most unusual winery activity I have seen this vintage has been a winemaker stirring fermenting grapes in a clay pot.

Brad from Brash Higgins stirring his clay pots

Brad from Brash Higgins has a new labour of love – his Nero d’Avola.  A new grape variety for McLaren Vale and this vintage is the fist grapes to be processed from the 2008 grafting.  If you want more information on this odyssey I will let Brad tell the story – check out his blog entry.

Another initiative for McLaren Vale starting May 1st was the unveiling of the McLaren Vale Scarce Earth project – but you will have to wait until my next blog to find out more or check out the McLaren Vale Scarce Earth Web Site for more information in the meantime.

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McLaren Vale Wines in the Barossa

Posted on May 1, 2011 by Lonely Grape

I find it amazing at times but it is quite interesting the effect of an organised tasting at one place with Barossa, Eden Valley and mcLaren Vale wines at a cellar door in the Barossa!  There was comments from both north and south of Adelaide that this concept was perhaps an abomination.

Regardless of a few interesting comments my family and I headed north on Good Friday to a lovely little Bed & Breakfast in Williamstown right on the outskirts of the Barossa.  The B&B was called Red Gum Retreat and I would recommend this friendly place to those liking a hint of old world charm.  Check out the photos.

Red Gum Retreat

Saturday brought some nerves from little old me – nerves that soon fell away.  On the way into Tanunda we noticed a number of scarecrows at various places on our way.  We found out later that there was a Scarecrow trail through the Barossa – how interestingly creative.  Check out the photos for a couple of examples.

By the time we unloaded the wine and sorted out where everything was going to go, the people started to trickle in.  For most people it was like so many wines, so little time – so lets try a couple.  Interestingly, so many people wanted sweet wines.

This is something that I believe a lot of wineries, winemakers and cellar door are missing out on.  I have even read a recent study (since coming home from this weekend) that shows a large proportion of people don’t drink a lot of wine as they would prefer wines with some sweetness.  While winemakers want to make wines they want to drink and there is a difference between the wants and the producers.  Ever wondered why Moscato is so popular.  Something for many wine companies to consider.

We were in the main street of Tanunda and it was great to see so many people wondering around, sharing the sunshine, the wines and the atmosphere that is the Barossa Vintage Festival.  It was also great to see my parents and my sister and cousins – though I did not spend much time with them as I was working.  Well the day went quickly and in no time it was lock up time.  Dinner with friends beckoned – and that is another story.

After a good nights sleep, Sunday was upon us.  After Saturday was seen as busy, what was in store for us on Sunday?  I should have guessed when there was a large family waiting at the door for the opening then they tasted every wine we had for tasting – over 20 of them.  This was just the start of what was a wonderfully busy day.

I would be remiss not to mention that the person who normally works the cellar door provided the visitors with lots of cheese and her home made quince paste and pear paste.  These condiments were very popular.  Nearly as popular as the chocolate truffles that were also available for those who tried the Liqueurs – people were so impressed they wanted to know where they could buy the chocolates from.

All in all I enjoyed the weekend and now I just need to understand if I made any money from the exercise!

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Lonely Grape Tv Episode #76 Mourvedre

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Lonely Grape

What a joy – tasting one of my favorite wine varieties (Mourvedre) and spending time with my son Tyler. One of them tries to take over the show.

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Lonely Grape TV Episode #75 – 2008 The Nebb

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Lonely Grape

I have tried and shared previous vintages of The Nebb on Lonely Grape TV before – see Lonely Grape TV Episode # 11. This time I am reviewing the 2008 wine. This wine is mainly Nebbiolo with some Cabernet and just strengthens my belief that Nebbiolo based wines should have a large following.

PS – watch Tyler take over this episode.

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