Tasting Notes, Wine Group, 17 June 2023
South Australian wines
Jim Barry Assyrtiko 2021
Jim Barry Wines
Lodge Hill Vineyard, Clare Valley
$29.99
Assyrtiko (A-sir-te-kok).
Peter Barry, Third Generation Family Winemaker brought cuttings from the Greek Island of Santorini and planted this variety for the first time in Australia in 2012. The crisp, racy, dry white wine reminded him of Clare Valley Riesling.
Aroma: Orange blossom, lemon peel and apricot kernel aromas.
Taste: Medium-bodied with racy acidity balanced by ripe stone fruit and impressive texture. Racy lemon acidity, mineral-driven texture, and great length.
Yalumba Eden Valley Viognier 2021
Yalumba
Eden Valley, Barossa Valley.
$22.99
The grapes for this wine come from six different Eden Valley vineyards, and artfully blended together to create the final wine.
Aroma: Apricot, peach and spring blossom are expressive on the bouquet.
Taste: Full-bodied and spicy to the taste with white pepper, ginger and mandarin zest tingles, mouth-coating viscosity, ripe juicy flavours of apricot and peach, hints of nuts and flower nectar, and a clean, lifted finish. Stone fruit flavours, a hint of exotic saffron and finishing with an alluring freshness.
Orlando Lyndale Adelaide Hills Chardonnay 2019
Orlando Wines
Woodside and Picadilly vineyards, Lyndale, Adelaide Hills.
$44.99
Best In Show, 97/100 at the Decanter World Wine Awards 2022, London – among the 50 best wines in the world!
“Packed with aromatic floral lime, underscored by a swirl of cream from barrel-fermentation. It’s vivid and fresh without being skinny, lean or over-taut – clearly a Chardonnay at ease with its cool climate” (DWWA 2022, London)
Aroma: Regional fruit characters of white peach and citrus with complex nuances of cashew, macadamia nut and flint. There’s no mistaking the combination of roasted nectarine, peach and apple alongside the scents of oak in the bouquet of this wine. Cashew nut and vanilla, butter and toasty barrel are showcased in the bouquet as well.
Taste: On the palate – full-bodied, rich in flavour with fruits and nut, custard and burnt butter qualities. There’s also a smoky quality to the flavours with the oak and some fine tannin textures as well. Purity of fruit underlies this wine with an abundance of stone fruit and lemon pith, however it shows plenty of restraint and precision with its tight mineral acid backbone. A multi layered palate with a seamless integration of oak and a harmonious texture that is an outstanding example of modern cool climate Chardonnay
St Hugo Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon 2018
St Hugo
Coonawarra
$33.99
95/100 (James Halliday’s Wine Companion), 93/100 (Huon Hooke, The Real Review)
Matured for 21 months in mostly new French oak hogsheads (300L), with a small percentage of American oak.
Aroma: A haunting scent of cedar, eucalyptus, blackberries, cassis, chocolate, pencil shavings and mahogany.
Taste: Vibrant cassis and dark fruits layered over well integrated oak-derived notes of cedar, cinnamon and roasted hazelnuts, intense bay leaf, mulberry, olive, savoury notes. Brightly flavoured, it’s stuffed with fresh black fruits infused with fine cedary oak. Very powerful and intensely concentrated, with embracing tannins providing the framework for a long cellar life.
Dandelion Vineyards Lionheart of the Barossa Shiraz 2020
Lionheart old vine vineyard, over 100 years old.
Barossa
$24.99
Double Gold (NZ International Wine Show). “This is a delicious full-bodied shiraz, hitting all the right notes” (James Halliday’s Wine Companion)
Dandelion Vineyards is a fusion of vineyards and vignerons across three families.
In the last week of April whole bunches of Shiraz were hand harvested, then gently crushed and naturally fermented in open fermenters for eight days, hand plunged twice a day, before careful basket pressing into some new but predominantly older French Oak Barriques to finish fermentation. After 18 months maturation and a racking in the same oak, we bottled our Lionheart without filtration or fining, to capture the essence of the vineyard.
Aroma: Intense dark berry and dark chocolate aromatics. Deeper aromas then meld with a complex yet subtle bouquet of soy, lavender, laurel, pink peppercorns, rosemary in Spring, eucalyptus bark when it rains, and smoked paprika – just a knife’s finest point
Taste: Plush fruit and berry flavours flood and fill – dark, concentrated but all at once fresh and alive. A flow of sweeping tannins as if taken at the tide. Drying, gripping and extending the wine. Tannins sit with acidity at palate’s end to reach a natural rapprochement, as the dark berry fruits’ diving bell-like depth free-dives further into a shiraz abyss …
Yalumba Antique Muscat
Yalumba
Multiple vineyards, mainly Rutherglen, Victoria.
$33.99 (375mls)
98 points (Robert Parker), Silver medal (IWC), Double Gold (NZ International Wine Show)
Barrels of old Muscat were purchased by Yalumba, mostly from Rutherglen, for further aging and blending. Non-vintage.
Fermentation is arrested by fortification with neutral grape spirit to retain the sweetness in the wine. The wine is matured in small oak barrels and after many years of maturation (some more than ten), a selection of older and younger wines are judiciously blended to produce this complex and balanced wine.
Aroma: Wonderful aroma of honey, raisins and fine old brandy. Rose petal, ginger spice and orange peel aromas, with butterscotch and fruitcake.
Taste: The palate is soft, silken and concentrated, with rich flavours of raisined fruit, wood aged characters, honey, marmalade, fruitcake and spices.
