2010 Printhie 'Mountain Range' Sauvignon Blanc
Nettley, showing a little age. Lemon and orange rind, grassy, some wild sage-bush. Lemon-scented honey aromas blend with lime, passionfruit and guava, with a little green tea thrown in. The palate is developed, as expected by now, and shows lemon curd, gooseberry, green bean and roasted green capsicum. Nice weight, texture and acid.
Vibe
Following on from the outstanding 2009 vintage Savvy and maybe falling short of those heights, but still a good wine – although I would be drinking it soonish. A stylish feel, but probably lacks the oomph factor of the previous vintage. As chance would have it, I learned via Twitter that Gary Walsh (Winefront) was tackling the 2010 MCC Sauvignon Blanc on the same night and giving it big raps. I must have a crack at this wine. Stay tuned.
Value: $18 – there's good value in the entire Mountain Range.
Tasted: August 2011
Closure: Screwcap
Source: Purchased
Tech-head
Producer: Printhie Wines – www.printhiewines.com.au - owned by the Swift family.
Region: Orange, NSW - the NSW central tablelands east of Sydney - a region of high-ish elevation.
Vintage: A difficult vintage with yields down across the board for many – although some excellent quality prevailed.
2010 Frankland Estate ‘Isolation Ridge’ Riesling
Minerally, slatey, flinty... There I said it. Floral aromas with citrussy lime and pear – there’s more going on here than in the average riesling flavour spectrum. There’s freshness and zing, lifted flavours and aromas. Refreshing. There’s broad flavours in the citrus and tropical sphere, and some spice and fruit blossom, but there’s also drive and length and focus. And there’s more of that flinty goodness.
Vibe
I don’t care what Philip White says, if I want to call a wine minerally I damn well will, and you all know what I’m talking about. Pure and fresh. Naturally exciting. This is a very good, benchmark WA Riesling. I’ll have some more please.
Value: At $32 it aint cheap, but this is the sort of wine you can pull out at a dinner party and impress the guests. A bit wanky, I know, but that’s wine for you sometimes.
Tasted: August 2011
Closure: Screwcap
Source: Sample
Tech-head
Producer: Frankland Estate – www.franklandestate.com.au – family-owned, established in 1988 by Barrie Smith and Judi Cullam.
Region: Frankland River, West Australia. Adjacent to Great Southern in the cooler south of WA.
Vintage: An ideal vintage for the Great Southern and Frankland River regions. Warm summer days and cool nights. Hard to make a bad wine from this year.
2011 Marq Vermentino
All I can tell you about this new player in the Margaret River region is that it's the private label of Happs winemaker, Mark Warren, and a variety you don’t usually see around Margaret River. It’s light and slightly oily-textured – the flavours are in the spectrum I quite like: lime and pear, peach and apple blossom, grapefruity, floral and perfumed – neat, tidy, gently flavoursome in a restrained sort-of way.
Vibe
Maybe too gentle? It doesn’t have the grunt of other vermentinos I’ve seen, nor the viscosity, but it is freshly bottled so perhaps showing some shyness at the moment. Ne'erless, it's a delightful little romp in the fields, and a perfect pre-dinner drink over spring and summer. With food? You’d be mad not to pair it with seafood – sardines, of course!
Value: Price unknown.
Tasted: August 2011
Closure: Screwcap
Source: Gift
Tech-head
Producer: Marq Wines – www.marqwines.com.au – Happs winemaker Mark Warren's own label.
Region: Margaret River, West Australia.
Vintage: A cracker vintage in the west – perfectly warm temps during the day and cool nights – fruit was ripe with good acids. A winemakers delight.
I’ve been under the weather this weekend and had to postpone a big tasting I had planned with a few buddies yesterday. But before I succumbed to the horrendous man-flu that cut me down so savagely in my tracks, I snuck this wine in. Here’s a brief note on it.
I don’t usually read anything on the wines I’m tasting so I’m not distracted or influenced by others. Nor do I read the back labels, so I don’t even know the wine handling usually. I went in blind on this one. Pinot gris is a tough ask on wine-tasters – my partner likes them, and when quizzed she says ‘because they don’t have much taste’. Hardly a recommendation I know, but sometimes you just want a simple white wine and not have to think too hard about it. That’s pinot gris. So, although I was expecting the usual non-descript pinot gris style, I was pleasantly surprised to find much more.
Lovely aromatics of rose petal and sherbet, some green apple and nashi pear. There were some herbal qualities too, in a nice way – imagine rubbing a fresh bay leaf between your fingers before smelling them. Also liked the orange rind-iness. And the honeyed lime.
Taste-wise I picked out some limey citrus flavours and some marzipan, but the remainder fitted into the floral/spice spectrum: sandalwood, musk, rosewater – and ending with ripe stone fruits: peach, nectarine. There’s a creaminess and layering on the palate too which led me to suspect some barrel work. It’s very well-handled – there, but not there – if you know what I mean.
Vibe
This is probably the most enjoyable pinot gris I’ve had in many a moon. Quite pleased with my tasting efforts too, as my notes uncannily reflect what the Printhie dudes wrote on their back-label – an unusual occurrence. But it's the booze that matters, and this is good booze.
Value: Very good value at $17.
Tasted: June 2011
Closure: Screwcap
Tech-head
Producer: Printhie Wines – www.printhiewines.com.au – owned by The Swift family.
Region: Orange, NSW – the NSW central tablelands east of Sydney – a wine region of high-ish elevation.
Vintage: A difficult vintage with yields down across the board for many – although some excellent quality prevailed.
I don’t know how I ended up with this in the fridge for so long without knocking the top off it. I remember I had a few bottles of this around release time, around the same time it one 7 billion awards. At the time it was punchy, pungent, grassy, lemony and rich and I could’ve sat all day just sipping and smelling. Hey, I probably did.
OK, fast forward to last night. I’m not much chop for writing about wines that are (supposedly) past their ‘best by’ date. I don’t actually subscribe to that theory mind you – I’ve enjoyed many white wines that have been way past best drinking only to find them exquisitely satisfying.
Thus.... on opening I got a little limey sherbet through the nasals, aka grapefruit tang I suspect; with a thread of damp straw and grass. The typical pineapple/passionfruit has ceased to be considered ‘fresh’ yet still linger in a tinned peach and pineapple kind-of theme. I needed a bit of a brain-shift to get behind the aged pea-green savvy character, so I racked up some pork sausages with a fig salad to get me in the mood.
With food most wines take on a new life, especially older white wines, and with a few fatty mouthfuls of pork snags this wine springs up and pops you in the nose with some punchy lift and drive.
What followed was a combo of grapefruit, pineapple and mango juice, lychee and mangosteen characters – and hey, it’s gone all troppo. And yep, there’s still abundant richness and punch. Did I say there was punch? Lemon tart lip-smacking zippy crunchy munchy punch is what I’m sayin’.
Vibe
1. Big punch on the nose. 2. That aged savvy-ness kicked in and I wavered... slightly. 3. Out with the pork. Brought this baby alive. Got betterer and betterer. Delightful food wine. The moral? Don’t forsake the out-of-date drink now whites – mix them up with some good nosh, sit back and enjoy.
Value: Cellar door price is $17. Bargain. Member price is $14.45. Crazy bargain. Go buy some now. Currently selling 2010 (which I haven’t tasted but would happily buy on the strength of the 2009 providing the vintage was tidy, which it was).
Tasted: January 2011
Closure: Screwcap
Tech-head
Producer: Printhie Wines – www.printhiewines.com.au
Region: Orange, NSW – the NSW central tablelands east of Sydney – a wine region of high-ish elevation.
Vintage: A super vintage in Orange. Good rains in winter/spring. Mild summer conditions without the heat that affected most of the eastern Australian regions.
