An extraordinary tasting

Thursday evening 19/07 I hosted a small gathering to taste a few new releases and a couple of great wines that are near vintage change.

It was an extraordinary tasting as this was a range of exceptional wines.

The new Rise Riesling 2011 from the Watervale sub region of the Clare was first up. The ’10 of this was very good this ’11 to me is just a little more elegant, not as steely a little more fruit driven than the ’10. A stunning wine that will improve with age.
Next up the Felton Road Bannockburn Chardonnay 2010, the new ’11 vintage is imminent. This is one of the best chardonnay’s I have had in eons, up there with the Mountadam Marble Hill ’06 I tasted last year. This is awesome wine with amazing complexity, stone fruit and citrus zest on the nose, extraordinary depth of flavour with lovely soft oak integration and it just lingers on the palate.

We followed with the Felton Road Bannockburn Pinot Noir 2011, there were audible sighs as people tasted this wine, drop dead gorgeous, elegant yet powerful with savouriness, earthiness, lovely tannins and complexity.

A cabernet from the West was up next, the Fraser Gallop Parterre Cabernet Sauvignon 2010. This is a Bordeaux inspired blend and a class act, dark berry fruits abound on the nose and palate, fine tannins and discrete French oak, will cellar to ten if you can keep your hands of it.

The Seville Barber Cabernet Merlot 2010 came next in the line up, this wine is getting close to a vintage change. Winner of the Trophy for Best at Cabernet Blend at the 2011 Yarra Valley Show, this is a bargain of a wine. Juicy dark berry fruits abound on the plate with fine tannins and a hint of oak, a wonderful mouthful.

Lastly the new 2010 Voyager Estate Shiraz from another cracking vintage in the West. A complex and elegant palate displaying flavours of raspberry, blackberry and dark cherries with a hint of spice. The tannins are fine, layered and silky and integrate seamlessly with nuances of cedar and vanillin from maturation in the finest French and American oak. Cellar to ten years.

Smoked salmon roulades worked well with the whites and the eight hour slow cook lamb and the feerhek salad was a treat with the reds, it was a tasting extraordinaire.

Cheers for now, Michael @ Wineseek.