Wine Reviews
Chapel Hill The Vicar Shiraz 2010
A big wine with strong flavours of dark fruits, spice and oak. The complex flavours don't quite carry through and the finish is a little short. This wine will improve with age.
Rosemount Balmoral Syrah 2011
This wine has a long reputation, and in the heyday of Rosemount Estate, before all the company mergers and takeovers, was a favourite wine. Unfortunately this vintage does not live up to that reputation, or is just that this is one of the first of the 2011 vintage to come through and we should lower our expectations? Has moderate fruit flavours with oak and tannins, but is disappointing for the money.
Kangarilla Road The Devil's Whiskers Shiraz 2010
Some complexity with flavours of plums and blackberries, finishes long with soft tannins.
Chapel Hill Shiraz 2010
A mid range wine, dark berry and chocolate flavours, quite sweet with well integrated oak and a strong tannic finish.
Battle of Bosworth Preservative Free Puritan Shiraz 2012
What strikes you at first about this wine is the very strong nose.There are fruit flavours, berries, rhubarb and violets but it is a rather simple wine and finishes short on the palate.
Penfolds Bin 23 Pinot Noir 2010
After some early cellar reserve Pinots, Penfolds added Pinot Noir to its Bin range. Seen as a work progess, Penfolds did not get rave reveiws for its early Bin 23s, with them being characterised as "classic Penfolds more than classic Pinot Noir". Given that background, this wine tasted surprisingly good with strawberry and red fruit flavours and a long soft silky finish.
Grasshopper Rock Earnscleugh Vineyard Pinot Noir 2010
Tastes of cherries and plums, a textured and complex wine that evolves in the glass. A long but rather sharp finish.
Bass Phillip Estate Pinot Noir 2009
Made by Australia's best Pinot maker Phillip Jones, the Estate Pinot is the third wine in the Bass Phillip hierarchy. Still it has all the Bass Phillip characteristics and flavours of berries and spice. A wine of power and finesse that opens up over time and needs to be opened early and decanted.
Chard Farm Mata-Au Pinot Noir 2010
Chard Farm in Central Otago is one of the great cellar door experiences. Just getting there is an adventure, an adventure that is worth the effort. Chard Farm has a range of Pinots for all tastes. This one tastes of cherries, is sweet and soft, complex and elegant, and finishes with velvety tannins.
Coldstream Hills Reserve Pinot Noir 2006
The Coldstream Hills reserve wines are not just the best of the vintage, they have to be better than that and are only produced when the wine is up to the reserve tag. The Reserve Pinot Noir was not made again until 2010, which made sourcing the 2006 quite an experience. As you would expect from a Coldstream Hills Reserve it was worth it. This wine tastes of cherries and plums and has a lovely silky texture. An excellent wine that is worth the money and the trouble to find it.
