May tasting of Solihull Fine Wine Society.
Theme was OZ and two ringers.
Blind as usual.
Flight one
Farr, Chardonnay, Victoria 2002. £18.95 Bright pale gold with a strange toffee and cough drop nose, not unpleasant. Good weight and balance, long. A nice chard.
Grosset, Picadilly, Chard, Adelaide Hills, 2003. £16 Paler than the Farr, dumb amd restrained, classic riesling ( ha bloody ha), refreshing acidity and balance. Two hours later had opened up into glorious buttery Mersault nose. Top class after the initial fauxpas.
Flight two Farr Pinot Noir, Geelong, Victoria, 2004, £15.40 youngest with good extract, dumb fruit and stalky, poor entry mean fruit, jst like the nose. That was my note. Two other members thought it was stunning and we double checked we were drinking the same stuff. I stand by my notes and got the piss taken somewhat.
Grossett Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills, 2003, £16 A hint of brown, bright and viscous. Raspberries and cherries, spice, all in balance, super, spicy fruit. Yum.
Farr, Sangreal, Geelong, Victoria, Pinot Noir, 2003 £18.90 Wonderful burgundian robe, intense cherries and cinnamon, complex. Soft sweet mouthful with fat middle, loads of fruit and long, a true fruit bomb, but someone mentioned sugar and old burgundian habits of adding. sugar and algerian as per the bad old days. my WOTN
Flight three Howard Park, cab, merlot, cf, Margaret River, Western Oz. 1998. £21.00 Stunning, leapt out of the glass, in your face oz claret, textbook cabernet of a colonial nature.Soft fruit and little tannin, at its peak now. long.
d'Angludet, Margaux 1996, (historic cost of £13.75) Huge extract, deep like port, no age, Vanilla oak cassis, s***ty organic, screamed Margaux. Rasping tannins still, ? enough fruit, try 5 years. spotted as the ringer.
Flight four Ch Grand Puy-Lacoste Pauillac, 1986, (Historic £13.30) Brown edge, tight salty nose with some fruit and spice, fair fruit, but imbalanced and starting to dry out. a bland hollow wine past its best.
Wynns Coonawarra, John Riddoch Limited Release, South Australia, 1986. £55!! Dead and cooked, to be returned to the merchants. Crumbly cork, probably sat in a container in Darwin for a few years.