Harry Clarke » wine

Indulgence

hc — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 05:53:59 +0000

At lunch today a friend provided a 1969 Wynns ‘Claret’. This was something of a misnomer as the label revealled it was, in fact, a cabernet-shiraz blend. It was a supremely aromatic, elegant aged wine that at 42 years of age was more than just perfectly sound and a curiousity – really close to perfection. Went well with a spicy duck dish.

As I always say if you are going to cellar wine it is important to focus on big name brands such as Wynns and Penfolds. These brands have a reputation to defend and even their less expensive brands can age into something that is close to perfection.

Update: 14/11. Today I encountered, again over lunch, a 1988 Taltarni French Syrah. Not nearly as good as the Wynns and a mere youthful adult in terms of ageing at a mere 23 years. It needed a fair bit of breathing – a great plum bouquet and a strong acidic palate – a bit past it though as the fruit has faded. Perfectly sound but not a great old wine. I can remember it was a glorious wine in its youth which is when it should have been drunk. Taltarni sell these old wines now for $120 a bottle. That’s a bit pricey in my view.

Update: 24/11. A 1994 Lake’s Folly “Cabernets”. Its drinkable and quite pleasant – ranked high among the post-1980 Lakes Folly cabernets – but, to be objective, well past its best. I’ve got 11 more of these and they should have ideally been drink 5 years ago. You learn. They will not last long.

Leeuwin Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 1985

hc — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:40:44 +0000

Sometimes you cellar wines of claimed renown only to find that, with extended cellaring, they have lost their fruit leaving only harsh tannins and oak. I bought this 26 -year old cabernet as a special at Nick the Wine Merchants I think in the early 1990s for around I think $14-99. As a young wine it was dominated by intensely herbaceous flavours and cigar box bouquets without much fruit flavour. After a quarter of a century nothing has changed or improved. The wine is sound but not attractive drinking and, as much as I adore the Leeuwin Estate chardonnays – the greatest of the great white wines of Australia – Leeuwin have never managed to do much with their reds. A disappointing cabernet with staying power but excessive tannins and oak – the fruit never had the requisite staying power. Grade 10.2/20.

Budget pinot noir exists

hc — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 11:32:10 +0000

Budget pinot noir – no it doesn’t exist. I’ve always thought that’s probably true but I have drunk a couple of wines recently that come close to fitting the bill exactly.

The Trentham Estate 2009 pinot got a rave review in a recent Age Greenguide. It is justified rave. This is a big wine with farmyard odors early on and a slightly, unpleasant stewed feel to it. It needs to breathe for an hour or so whereupon it settles into a solid pinot with strawberry elegance and a fragrant though fairly thick nose. Remarkably it has complexity and depth. It will be better with a year or so in the bottle but it is still great drinking now provided you decant. I got mine at Dan Murphies for $13-60. At that price it is an absolute steal.

I got cold-called by a discount wine vendor that I buy from occasionally (getwinesdirect.com) and they offered me a New Zealand Peter Howland Marlborough 2008 pinot for $11-99 delivered free. In a moment of madness I bought a dozen – you sit back and think – you did get suckered you silly bugger. But no, this is a special wine too. A conventional and deletable pinot nose with a gentler strawberry finish than the Trentham. Very good clean pinot with a fresh acid finish and a cherry-strawberry mix of flavors. I tried to get more but they are sold out.

Gamay

hc — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:59:02 +0000

One of the world’s rubbish wines that I have always enjoyed is gamay Beaujolais. I drank a gorgeous, spicy entry-level Paul et Eric Janin Moulin a Vent 05 at Source Dining in Albury a couple of weeks back – I have already indicated that this restaurant offers some of the best food in NSW - the wine list is also superb – ask Steve for recommendations. We did this that night and he didn’t disappoint.

The best gamay wines come from Beaujolais and the Loire Valley in France. The grape itself is a clone of pinot noir without the pretensions of pinot but with a happy affability – and a somewhat spicy, aromatic fragrant finish. Like many of the French wines I drink, it offers a welcome retreat from the overpowering reds that distinguish the Australian scene. Indeed, in Australia, you must pay more to get a lot less – more approachable red wines.

At Dan Murphy’s I have bought a couple of Beaujolais-Village over the last few days for between $12- $16. Not great wine but enjoyable. The snobs don’t like this stuff but economists, such as myself, revel in the fact that purchasing it is a market opportunity – a bulk, inexpensive wine with interest. I don’t think there are more than a few significant gamay producers in Australia – one Yarra Valley producer got tragically burnt out in the 2009 bushfires.

Australian (& 1 NZ) pinot noir

hc — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 09:41:24 +0000

In the pure interests of science I have been working my way though some local pinot noir wine over the past week. Like many pinot tragics I have wasted a lot of money and effort trying to purchase great French red burgundies mostly without a great deal of knowledge or with great success. I’ve scored about as many times as I had rewarding adolescent romances – so I do treasure my miserable track record. Good burgundies are out there but hiding – they are even claimed to exist – at prices that don’t necessarily break the bank – but they are hard to find.

What about Australian pinot? Most of the following – not all – come after an afternoon attack on Dan Murphy’s liquor store in Melbourne following a read of the 2009 and 2010 versions of James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion. I’ve got to say – despite banning advertising on this site – that Dan Murphy’s had many of the top ranked pinots at prices often better than the vineyard. A good source of top ranking Aussie pinots.

A general observation – Australian pinot provide good if somewhat monotone wines. They don’t have the French pong – read savory character – that appears as a distant (though essential) afterthought in the great French wines. The tradeoff is simple – drinking this Aussie plonk is not giving the same quality as intermediate French red burgundies – although the NZ Mount Difficulty wine was yapping at the heels of the frogs – but the Aussie wines are much cheaper - and mostly a good drink.

All – except for the Stoniers – benefitted from decanting and breathing for at least an hour.

My preference ranking among those listed – the Mt Difficulty if you can get it (NZ not Australian) #1, Stonier Reserve #2, and, as a straight value proposition, the non-reserve Tuck’s Ridge. I’ve taken a punt by cellaring a dozen of the Farr Rising for another 4-5 years. It has the potential to become something special.

Coombend Estate 2005 (East Coast Tasmania). The only dud wine of all those tasted. Low intensity of flavor and almost no discernible pinot character of the nose. It was cheap ($23) and I could recognize that it was a pinot but that is all. Not rated by Halliday. Unsatisfactory – you can get better value than this, see below. Recommended by a salesperson at Dan Murphy’s – don’t believe these people. 10/20.

Farr Rising Pinot Noir 2007 (Mornington Peninsula). I had big expectations of this wine. Halliday gave it 96 points with a suggested drinking horizon to 2017. The Farr’s (wine-makers) have a formidable reputation as winemakers given their role at Bannockburn wines, Geelong. Get out your Reidel glasses to soak up the class of this one. Almost unnecessary to drink – the nose is so powerful and the fruit flavors intense. Excellent palate if slightly mono-dimensional at this stage but it will improve and gain complexity in the bottle. Decanted and left for 90 minutes strawberry flavors began to shine. Not delicate, complex or elegant yet but a long finish. At $31-35 a bottle a steal – I exhausted DM’s remaining stocks the following day. Very good with potential to become great? 16/20.

Tuck’s Ridge Mornington 2007 (Mornington Penisula). The cheaper variant of this vineyard’s renown pinot. 94 Halliday points, drink to 2015, $39 at Vineyard and $20-90 at DM. Good pinot nose with plum palate and good length. Excellent value for a budget class pinot. Blossomed in bottle after decanting which suggests that waiting a few years might bring rewards. Very good. 17/20.

( I have half a half-dozen of the Tuck’s Ridge Buckle Vineyard 2007 (Mornington Peninsula) which I will leave for a few years before sampling. Ranked by Halliday as the best pinot in Australia, $80 – an excessively expensive experiment to drink now – their lifetime should extend to 2020. I got the last of a very limited supply direct from the vineyard).

Stonier Reserve Pinot Noir 2007 (Mornington Peninsula). A top ranked wine by Halliday, 96 points and $42-75, drink to 2014. Gorgeously sweet wine with inviting cherry-plum palate. Getting there in terms of complexity but, in the main, just a great flavorsome, immaculate, fruity pinot that breathed class. It isn’t profound – just delicious. The bottle disappears quickly and the tears well up in my eyes as the last gulp gets gulped. Close to excellent. 18+/20.

Port Phillip Estate Pinot Noir 2007 (Mornington Peninsula). I really liked this pinot and so did quite a few others. Garnet-like hue and exceptional flavour and bouquet. It is pretty close to perfection in the Australian approach to pinot. Fairly acidic and vibrant – my guess is it has a relatively long life ahead of it and will improve with 5 years in the bottle. A gem – very sound and well-rounded. Halliday ranks 95 points and drink to 2016. My grade 18+/20.

(The non-reserve Stonier Pinot Noir 2008 for around $21 has just been released and is a superb inexpensive pinot that you could easily cellar to 2014. Very clean, fruity, plum-cherry finish with much grip and a refined, fruity nose. Excellent finish - by no means a complex wine but yummy. Sends out joyful messages. Drink it and don’t think. Very good 16.5/20.)

Curlewis Bel Sel 2007 (Geelong). An amiable, inexpensive ($23-75) pinot given 93 Halliday points and drink through to 2014. Fairly light finish, no complexity but attractive medium intensity palate and an inviting nose. An attractive, pinot that should be decanted and left for an hour or more. Leave for a few years. Good. 15/20.

Paringa Estate Peninsula Pinot Noir 2008 (Mornington Peninsula). I cannot agree with Halliday’s rating of 95 points for this wine but his suggested lifespan to 2014 agrees with the wine-maker’s view. I found this wine disappointing. Not much on the nose and the somewhat grippy finish came up a bit short for me. Not a substantial pinot varietal palate either. Nor did it improve in the bottle with a couple of hours oxygen feeding unlike several of the others. It is fairly inexpensive – I forgot to take note but I think it was about $23 – but not recommended – there are better-valued wines in this price range. 12.5/20.

Tamar Ridge Kayena Vineyard 2007 (Tasmania, Tamar Valley). Again a perfectly correct pinot noir that is a very good drink. Flavorsome wine with a strong palate (strawberries and plum) finish and a nose. Halliday gave 95 points with a recommendation to drink to 2013. I bought for $33-25. Good. 15/20.

Mt Difficulty Pinot 2007 (New Zealand). Around $44-95 – I assume this was not one of the single vineyard pinots from this place as I drank it by the single glass at a moderate price in Walters Wine Bar Melbourne. This sort of wine restores your faith in the human race and makes you think twice about the relevance of the earth crashing into the sun in 4 billion years. If you can get your mouth around this class of wines do so. Strong elegant bouquet and complex fruit-driven complexities on the palate that give different sensations with each sip – a colleague independently made almost the same description so I am not just verbalizing. Outstanding – a great pinot. 19/20.

More nostalgia – Fairport Convention

hc — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 11:17:00 +0000

Fairport Convention is one of my all-time favourite bands. They still perform although their early album with Sandy Denny Liege and Lief remains my favourite. Denny died tragically in 1978 after skipping through a number of groups. Liege and Lief is monumental folk-rock music:

‘To rouse the spirit of the earth and move the rolling sky’.

Try: Come All Ye. The Deserter. Reynardine. Matty Groves. Tam Lin…… fantastic performances.

A beautiful later piece by Denny and this and this. Same incredible voice.

The rhythms of Tam Lin move me 40 years back through time – acrid, smoke-filled rooms, cheap, red wine and earnest discussions about the Vietnam War and conscription. But enjoying FC now in real time with a 1988 Balgownie Estate – Cabernet Savignon – made by the legendary vigneron Stuart Anderson. Great old wine with great music!

1992 St Hubert’s Cabernet

hc — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 08:54:00 +0000

Last year I reviewed one of the best wines I drank that year, a 1991 St Hubert’s Cabernet. I thought I had exhausted my stock of these great old wines when I found, this evening, a 1992 St Hubert’s Cabernet-Merlot nestled away, the sweet thing that it is, in a sinful back alley of my diminuitive cellar where it had the nape of its neck buried deep between magnums of Froggie plonk I had bought for a special occasion but forgotten about.

This St Huberts is a gentle old wine with rich cabernet perfumes but with a gorgeous sweet-muted cabernet palate that still has a steely backbone and plenty of cleansing acid. I remember when I bought this wine thinking it was a bit over-oaked. Not at all – now the oak is obviously there but seamlessly integrated with mature fruit. A great wine is so sweet and drinkable that it doesn’t challenge. Just a good drop and a reminder that the Yarra Valley can produce red wines which age well as well as good pinots and chardonnay for the bourgeois wine-drinking spoilers.

It will drink well for another 4-5 years but has probably reached its peak by now.

Saturday night with Grand Cru

hc — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 02:14:00 +0000

My friend Professor Chongwoo Choe has come to his senses and returned to live in Melbourne. He and his wife put on a sumptuous dinner last night with four exciting French wines that he had managed to gather while on his regular academic field trips to France.

To start off we enjoyed a Chablis Grand Cru Grenouilles 2005 which was a non-idiosyncratic – though excellent – co-op Chablis with peachy overtones. It went down well with oysters and a variety of soft cheeses – pure class and the first Grand Cru Chablis your humble correspondent has ever enjoyed. Next came an exceptionally powerful Burgundy wine, a Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 2003, – this was an intensely-flavoured chardonnay with strong minerally overtones. Then, with an excellent meal of spicy pork, veal and chicken, there followed a super intense and aromatic Latricières-Chambertin Grand Cru 1995 red burgundy – no hint of bottle age, it tasted like a fresh young wine – followed by a good merlot, the Chateau Figeac St Emilion Premier Cru 1997.

Desert was a mango sponge followed by a top local sticky, De Bortoli Noble One Botrytis Semillion 2004.

The six drinkers present were split in their assessment of the wines although most thought the pinot exceptional. My own preference went to the Chablis, a sublime style that I seldom come close to experiencing in Australian wines, although to be frank none of the French wines enjoyed have straightforward Australian correlates. The pinot was my exceptional second choice.

God lives in the Coonawarra

hc — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 09:30:00 +0000

One of the great wine makers of Australia is Brian Croser of Petaluma. He makes lovely chardonnays and a Riesling you would die for but one of the wines of his that I really like is the Cabernet-Merlot. I drank my sole (sob!) remaining bottle of the 1990 vintage this evening.

It is 88% cabernet and 12% merlot and, in terms of viticultural conditions, this wine came from one of the best-ever years in The Coonawarra.

Jamie Oliver’s review of this wine (consumed 2007):

‘Complex and statuesque, with a dusty, smoky and floral perfume whose beautifully developed fruit, cedary oak and undergrowth-like complexity overlie classic cabernet dried herb influences.

Sumptuous and powerful, yet superbly structured and elegant, its rich layers of dark fruit knit tightly with firm, fine-gained tannins, finishing with a lingering core of vibrant flavour.

Message: Even at 17 years of age, top-level Australian cabernet can appear backward, in need of additional cellaring time, and plenty of it’

I certainly agree with the word ‘elegant’ although it seems to me very drinkable now – yum.

The Petaluma wines are never jaw-breaking ‘big’ wines – they are elegant, understated and delicious. This wine does have a slight herbaceous ‘greenness’ about it that was not, at all, a wine-making fault. A seriously good wine that makes me seriously unhappy as I look at that depleted bottle.

Taxing alcohol & tobacco products

hc — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 05:04:00 +0000

I found this webpage from the Australian Taxation Office on excise charges on alcohol and tobacco products very useful. Taxes ideally should reflect damages of these products which are presumably related to alcohol and carcinogen content respectively. With respect to alcohol this is volumetric taxation rather than ad valorem taxes levied on product value.

All forms of alcohol except wine are taxed volumetrically – at least as excise taxes – though there are quantity discounts for larger volumes sold, I assume in pubs and bars:

1. Low alcohol beer (less than 3% alcohol) in containers less than 48 litres is taxed at $32-78 per litre of alcohol exceeding 1.15% of volume. In larger volumes (greater than 48 litres) the tax drops to $6-54. Low alcohol beer on tap at the pub should be a comparative bargain!

2. High alcohol beer (greater than 3.5%) is taxed at $38-20 in low volumes and at $26-85 in larger volumes again per litre of alcohol exceeding 1.15% of volume. Not such a great bargain at the pub!

3. Other spirits are taxed at $60-42 per litre of alcohol.

Drinking spirits seems to attract an exceptionally high volumetric charge. If damage is proportional to alcohol content it would seem to make sensed to reduce the tax on spirits and raise it on beers. There would also seem to be no obvious basis for the quantity
discounts given to pubs.

Beer has three rates (full, medium and light) purported to encourage responsible drinking, resulting in $0.33 and $0.22 per standard drink. Spirits come out to be $0.75 per standard drink (except for brandy, which for some historical reason is $60.42). The per standard drink rates are taken from an information sheet put out by the Alcohol and other Drugs Council of Australia. So, given that firstly, the tax is paid on alcohol volume, and secondly that the rates are higher for higher alcohol drinks, the system is not only volumetric, but has built in incentives to consume lower alcohol drinks.

Wine is taxed on an ad valorem basis based on value. For cheaper cask wines this means a much lower rate of tax per unit alcohol than other alcoholic beverages.

Wine is thus treated quite differently from beerm, spirits and RTDs.

The problem seems to be mainly with wine. When the GST was introduced and various taxes done away with, the Wine Equalisation Tax was set such that prices didn’t change too dramatically. The WET rate is 29 per cent of the wholesale sale value (ad valorem). This makes it difficult to compare with the rates for other drinks, but the ADCA fact sheet quotes the WET to be about $0.22 per standard drink on bottled wine ($0.69 on a bottle selling for $32, according to a submission to a 2002 Senate Inquiry on the topic) and $0.07 on cask wine.

Wine has a higher alcohol content than beer or RTDs (which must be less than 10%), but the lower tax for most wines could in theory be due to the positive health affects that are attributed to wine. I don’t have any evidence for this next statement, other than the occasional headache after drinking cheap bubbly, but it is possible that the tax system encourages the consumption of wine with greater impurities including methyl alcohols, and hence worse health effects. Whether this is true or not, the very low tax on cask wine is out of proportion to other taxes and is a very weak disincentive to over-consume.

GST is payable on the price including excise or WET (I think paying a tax on a tax is a bit of a rort).

However, despite the volumetric tax which is applied to most alcohol products, it still gets plenty of airplay: “Dr Herron said taxation of alcohol should also be restructured with the aim of reducing harm in the community. ‘The basic taxation should be one determined by the volume of alcohol in the product with the necessary adjustment to promote responsible consumption.’ ” from SMH 31 Jan 2007

With respect to tobacco products:

1. Tobacco is taxed at $0.24301 per stick (for sticks not exceeding 0.8 grams) irrespective of tobacco composition. On a pack of 25 this is $6 per pack.
2. Other forms of tobacco (wet snuff, loose tobacco) the charge is a massive $300 per kilogram.

This isn’t ‘volumetric ‘in intent at all given that there are strong arguments for believing smokeless tobaccos are much safer than cigarettes. Cigars and pipe tobacco also see safer than cigarettes.

Even if damages are more difficult to map in terms of the composition of tobacco this does not seem a sensible arrangement.

Economists would also say that these taxes, in a second-best world, should be larger the less elastic are demands since then the excess burden or deadweight loss associated with raising a given amount of revenue is minimised. Since demands for alcohol and tobacco are quite inelastic this suggests a case for high taxes.

On the other hand some of these goods are often consumed by low income people so, to that extent, the taxes are regressive.

This post might be obvious to people working in these industries but some of these ideas are new to me. I would greatly appreciate knowing if I have got the interpretations wrong.