This dinner took place the night after the picking crew harvested the Lowburn Vineyard for Auburn’s 2010 Lowburn Riesling. Once again, we didn’t mess around at the start. 09 Felton Road Riesling: Sex in a glass as usual. This seems drier than previous releases, via stronger acids, even though the residual sugar is still over 50 grams. Intense and in the groove. This went down so fast no one really paid too much attention, and I didn’t get to take much of a note. 07 Comte de Vogue Bourgogne Blanc: Opens a little funky and oxidative for the briefest of moments and then locks up tight. Coiled power underneath, so we leave this for some time to return to. Lanolin, lemon, perhaps some other citrus. Maloed and rounder acids, but doesn’t seem to have seen much oak if at all. (The next morning we looked at the leftovers again, and it was still locked up tight! NV Veuve Clicquot: Citrus, bread, some aged material showing, and truffley strawberry notes – red fruits? Good persistence and well structured. I know its big house NV, and I know its not fashionable in some circles, but this is quite tasty. Blind wine no 1: Golden colour. Texturally this is lithe but still slightly curvy in its new world shape, not a fleet footed german. It is off dry, and has some vanilla and limey citrus qualities, great length. To me this is a Kiwi and quite an old one. Turns out to be an 01 Johanneshof Riesling – I would have guessed older than that. (I’m learning that NZ Rieslings age differently to Aussie Rieslings, and so far I’m interpreting that as overadvancement). ??? Sparkling Vouvray: Yes I missed the name completely. Very quiet muted nose. Palate, is apple cider, vanilla, pear, very vibrant mousse, Simple & fresh fruited with some touches of funk – which is a bit dirt like and shows some aldehydic quality, and a similar taste to the brown rot we saw today. Let down by being a bit short. I think others in the crowd liked this a lot more than me. Then we looked at two Gruner Veltliners, a grape I know little about. 07 Domaine Wachau Gruner Veltliner Fiederspiel Terrassen: Tropical fruit nose. The palate starts out that way but goes quite dry quite quickly, with a saline like quality. Also shows some light leafy elements. Juicy acids make this quite attractive. 07 Weingut Knoll Loibner Gruner Veltliner Fiederspiel: More elegant nose, with white pepper tones showing. Palate is richer and rounder here and seems to have something phenolic added, oak treatment or malo? Still in the tropical pear spectrum, and a trace of heat on the finish. Most liked this wine ahead of the Wachau.
This pair was a great education. This is a grape I think I could come to terms with. When I’m not drinking wines like the next beauty, which was the…
05 Donnhoff Oberhauser Liestenberg Kabinett: You know, I’m getting to the point I reckon I cold pick the O L Kabinett blind. Any vintage. Its such a joyous drink, year in year out, and this wine proves it can take a few years of ageing too. It is starting to show some aged characters with its lovely vineyard character – lemon, lime, creaming soda. its fresh and alive, juicy and just lovely. A lingering tingly sweetness balanced by perfect acids.
(Did I mention I’m visitng the Donnhoff cellar door in July?)
04 Felton Road Block 6 Chardonnay (en Magnum): A barrel ferment nose – oysters. I always visit aged chard with trepidation but this is really interesting – mushroomy oysters, cumquat, orange cashew. Great length. Respect. 06 Moss Wood Pinot Noir: Softly structured with fine tannins. Warm, indistinct fruits. Medium length. I didn’t enjoy this as much as the next wine which was… 05 Pirie Sigma Pinot Noir: But by now its 1.30am, and my note taking capabilities are gone. Form a reat Tasmanian vintage, all I can remember is liking this quite a lot,and being pissed in the morning that I didn’t manage to stay awake another half hour…but I’m told the poker and scotch started again, and we had another vineyard to pick in the morning…
Perhaps a testament to the quality of these wines is the list of what we didnt drink:
05 Trapiche Malbec
01 Domaine Fourrier Gevrey Chambertin 1er Clos St Jacques
99 Fritz Haag Brauneberger Juffer Sonnenuhr Auslese Goldkapsel
07 Andreas Schmitges Beerenauslese
But they are tucked up safe and sound for next year…
7 May 2010 will go down as an auspicious day. It was the day of the harvest dinner prior to the picking of the 2010 Auburn Wines vintage. Well, it was more than a dinner, I’ll describe the events of 7 May 2010 and all that transpired.
The day starts somewhere around 10am with breakfast – the protagonists at this point of the day are Max, Nick, Ryan and yours truly. Bacon, egg venison salami pizza (on a white pizza base fried off onion and garlic, mixed with ricotta and olive oil and made into a paste). Delicious, I’m going to try and make these. But even now we are thinking about wine, so to wash down breakfast:
Felton Road Block 1 Riesling 2009: Perfect. A ridiculous indulgence which is absolutely what is called for. Max and Nick have days off, Nick has just driven 8 hours to get here, and Ryan and I are well and truly on holidays. We want nothing but the best. Creaming soda, green herbs, lemons, white peach. Floral and juicy, the acids take a while to kick in and clean this up. Long delicate finish. Disappeared all too quickly, and alas no longer available even to those on Felton Road’s block list. We’re still thirsty so…
Dr Loosen Urziger Wurzgarten Spatlese 2006: I don’t like what Ernie Loosen does with his Wurzgarten wines. Or at least I haven’t until now. More golden colour than the Felton Road, showing its few years of bottle age. White peach, lime, lanolin and petrol notes on nose. The palate is immediately lifted - white flowers and lemons and also a deeper limey orange and cumquat richness reflecting the vintage. Great persistence and length and a lightness that can only be Germany. Lovely, although Nick who provided the bottle says this has been better in earlier bottles. With time, this also picks up a distinct passionfruit flavour.
Interlude 1: Golf. Well we walked around a golf course and waved clubs about at little white balls, but that’s about as far as the resemblance goes. Apart from Ryan who birdied the 8th hole.
And then a stand up interlude at an end of vintage gathering at one of the local Central Otago wineries:
Speights: I used to like Speights. Now I think it is somehow New Zealand’s punishment for not having Fosters. Quartz Reef Chauvet: Soft, creamy red fruit dominant. A crowd pleaser. Quartz Reef Bendigo Pinot (magnum): Colour and nose are aged, palate more interesting – has some lovely aged fruit and soy sauce elements.
And then home for harvest dinner no 1. I think everyone knows this is going to go for a while… we are still demanding the best so start with something spectacular.
JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Auslese Riesling 1995: This bottle was lucky to escape being turned into contraband for the golf course. Hot damn - this is fresh as a daisy and still wearing its sulphur! Lovely balance of filigreed lemony and delicate white peach and other citrus fruits, still a good dose of sulphur. Great length, lovely sugar acid balance, light on its feet for this pradikat level, perhaps reflecting the way things were done 15 years ago. Very Nice wine indeed, and a great way to kick off the evening part of the proceedings!
Schoffitt Pinot Blanc “Auxerrois” 2007 Vielles Vignes (Alsace): Smells of lanolin, quince nectarine. The immediate mouthfeel is textural, perhaps showing the step up in alcohol level from the Prum and earlier wines. The from palate is limes, mandarins and a super ripe orange pith character, heading to marmalade in texture and ripeness. Finish has a trace of lemon in it. Other people are finding all sorts of tropical fruits in this – paw paw, mango, etc. A very nice wine. I’m learning to like Pinot Blanc, I’ve now had a few that I quite like.
Lucien Albrecht Riesling 2006: 11.75% ABV. Delicate little flower – hard to coax a lot from this. Some citrus, perhaps some grapefruit? Texturally OK, ripe, solid acids, but needs more fruit weight.
Blind wine no 1: A glass stopper in a burgundy bottle throws everyone – who uses that combination?? Pear, quince, grapefruit, peach, nut and vanilla pod smells. Really interesting and complex. A funky sweaty attack on the front palate. Gingery, musky spice. Apricot, pear, cumquat. This is sooooo a new world viognier. I don’t think it has seen a lot of wood and don’t think it’s that old, and I would guess Aus if forced. Don’t know whose this is though. Revealed as an absolute balltearer ptions wine – the 08 Cristom Viognier. Who knew?
Blind wine no 2: Well this is a pinot. And a young one. Chewy gummy fruit based nose with pepper spice nose. Palate is bursting with juicy fruit and some earthiness. And it is dense in weight and flavour. Not great length or complexity (perhaps yet). It’s the 08 Te Whare Ra Pinot Noir from Marlborough. Great to try this after being soaked in Central Otago pinto for a few days now.
Then an interlude without blindness and guessing - 08 Te Whare Ra Syrah: Cherry, purple jubes, black pepper nose. Aaah, tannin! V young and primary and sweet, musk sticks and plums, redskins, juicy berries. Dense and mouthcoating and primary. Doesnt show the spice that the nose hints at – a slight disappointment. Great persistence though. This is off 5 to 8 year old vines, and shows Marlborough is good for a whole lot more than Sauvignon Blanc.
Blind Red wine no 2: This has a feral pongy pooey nose. The palate is really savoury, although it wallows into the dirty bum spectrum (did I really think that?), over some black fruits, graphite and roast meats. But gentle tannins. Perhaps some bottle age but varietal unknown – Mourvedre? Older Grenache? Or something Spanish? Or one of the Italians like montelpulciano? Nooo, its Max being an evil bugger again. Its an American Syrah – an 05 HDV Syrah – Los Carneros. 14.3% ABV.
More Syrah, this time Australian. 01 Castagna Genesis Syrah: White pepper over small berries & beetroot, and a touch of something animale – roast meats, forest floor etc. (Max: some EA) Ooh love this structure. Long fruit flavours, strong fine boned tannin that goes on for some time. Shows its bottle age with a touch of leather, blueberry. Even a touch of orange berocca. Incredible length here.
A blind dessert wine: This time my evil little options wine. A volatile little beast . Vanilla, grapefruit and according to someone in the crowd “sexual orange”, whatever that is. Powdery in a sense that says this is slightly past it. Dense and long. Tiring a little and not as sweet as more modern cuvees. Loaded with tartrate crystals at the bottom of this little bttle. This is great to try nonetheless as it’s a wine no one gets to drink a lot of - Von Othegraven Kanzamer Altenberg Trockenbeerenauslese 1976.
And then poker until 3am, where we bet fingers toes and testicles as no one was awake enough or sober enough to find the chips. As a result, the next morning sees two of us with very deep voices, two without, and a few vicious hangovers…
Harvest dinner no 2 to come…
A single vineyard wine from the Fletcher Vineyard on the Wairau Plains in the heart of Marlborough. At 9% alc, it’s an off-dry style from a vintage that suffered from poor flowering followed by an ideal late summer and autumn, resulting in bunches with low berry numbers of intense concentration.
It has the quintessential NZ Riesling nose; pure citrus spectrum fruit, hints of minerality, blossoms and a crumb of toast alluding to its age. Fresh out of the bottle, the acidity was green apple tangy, almost to the extent of overpowering the sugars, but three glasses on into the afternoon, the wine had really evolved to the point of ultimate balance (perhaps helped by a slightly warmer serving temperature).
Lots of ripe tangelo and orange on the palate, with that vein of acidity cutting into the sweetness and leaving a crisp, fresh finish with fruit sweetness rather than sugar sweetness. With a persistent, slightly astringent finish (in a good way), it’s a class wine that would effortlessly push another decade on the wine rack.
Sublime with breakfast burritos, but even better with mussels in chilli and garlic vinegar.
I’m off to Germany in 5 weeks, and I’m staying at the Schmitges winery for 3 days. Better get through some of his wines then!
We sipped this wine with fish, chips and salad over dinner. Medium Dry? Its just off dry. It takes some for this delicate little flower to open. The sugars seem to be in that just off dry 5 to 20g/l range. It was a revelation with the salad, where the vinegars helped the wine’s sweetness show.
Nosing the last glass from the bottle, some coaxing gives you apple blossom, lemon, lime, crunchy blackberry. The palate is delicate and crystalline at first, but the mid palate shows its spatlese must weight. Lime zest, lemon oil, and some deeper set citrus, almost like its been touched by botrytis too in the form of orange marmalade.
This is what it is - somewhere between Kabinett and bone dry. its tasty, goes well with food and ticks all the boxes.
Worth a look if this is your preferred style,
cheers
Andrew
Hello all,
This is my first post on Vinoculation. Thank you to Max for inviting me to contribute. I thought the best way to start was with a tasting note on the grape variety I love - Riesling.
I picked this bottle up back in 2008 after an instore tasting. I quite liked the whole Muddy Water range, and acquired some to cellar for a while. And the funny thing is I’ve never seen them again at my local retail.
The statistics on the back label will tell you this is an Alsatian Vendage Tardive style - 13% ABV, 56g/l residual sugar, only botrytis affected bunches. Against a backdrop of of dry riesling from Germany and New Zealand, that’s a pretty ripe wine! It smells of orange marmalade and apricots, and has a real lift about it. There’s the unmistakeable dried apricot and spice of botrytis as well, along with some lanolin and lime. The palate is a rich, viscous textural delight. Dried apricots and ginger initially then some classic lemons and limes. The back palate is where the 13% alcohol shows in the form of some volatility and a touch of varnish. The acids are just right and wrap up the whole package nicely into a great wine for spicy food. Its rich, its spicy, its full of flavour. If I had just one wish, it would be for 11% alcohol rather than 13….