$30; 11.5% alcohol;
screw cap; 93+++ points
You know those big plush petals of the magnolia flower?
That's the first thing this lovely drink brought to mind. Texturally confident,
but creamy. There's lime blossom and lime pith too, of course, as you'd expect
of Eden Riesling. But this is not as austere,
stony and steely as many of those high country austerities. This is almost
fragile. It's a total delusion, but the wine has so much of that naive and
simple cleavage flesh that you forget to look at the amazing business going on
in the engine room.
Which you encounter in the mouth division. Clunk. You hit
the real old rocks here. The wine seems a bit short at first. Abrupt. But you
give it six or seven hours and the damn thing starts to begin to think about
showing its cards. It literally crawls out from beneath its rock, like
something serpentine or lizardish after hibernation: real slow and drowsy but
very very delibarate and hungry. Blue tongue flicking.
I've been taking flak lately for recommending so many
wines that I suggest need some cellaring. I dunno how to deal with this: my
stance must seem effete, unreasonable and unattainable. But c'mon cobber,
that's the heart of this business. Would you prefer to drink the 1971 Grange or
the 2011?
This wine will kick total arse like unforgettable in
what? Another generation? A decade? A forgetfulness?
Penfolds Bin 128
Coonawarra Shiraz 2013
$40; 14.5% alcohol;
screw cap; 93+ points
I don't reckon I've ever mentioned the word sexy in a
Penfolds review, so get that straight out of your mind. When this first came
forth, it seemed another of those Penfolds Coonawarras that are nothing like
much else out of that big red cigar apart from maybe Zema. Which made me think
it was a matter of venerable vine age, but it's not that simple.
I'm trying to be,
how you say, transparent.
The Weather Undergound vigilants of deep Penfolds get
stuff out of Coonawarra which is somehow pure Penfolds. Not Wynns, not Blass,
not anything alse. Not every year or anything like that, but regularly. With
the vagaries of the vintages, this stuff comes and goes and goes up and down
like the tides. But here you have a classic Penfolds Coonawarra Shiraz.
Ridgey-didge.
It's in the great framework of traditional Australian
claret, smooth and dignified and elegant with just the right see-saw of
yin-yang baby fruit and future.
Halley-friggin-loo-ya!
I need urgently to sit with Peter Gago, David Wynn and
Max Schubert to drink this and watch 'em
skite. A spoon of ripe Stilton would be the go. You got a special corner
somewhere in there Pete?
Penfolds The Max
Schubert Barossa Coonawarra Cabernet Shiraz 2012
$450; 14% alcohol;
screw cap; 95+++ points
I can imagine a health farm somewhere in the
mango/paw-paw tropics where you wash this on your face every morning and go and
stand naked in the rain.
This wine somehow rises above drink. I reckon you can
inhale something this silky, luxurious and smooth through your pores.
It'd go straight into your genes.
More along the Bin 60A lines than Grange, it's a perfume.
Barossa provides the well-dressed saddle, plush and soft; Coonawarra perfume
rides the horse. Confectioner's sugar; musk; jellied mint; crystallised
violets. Persian pashmak: the original floss candy.
Faeries.
All this insinuates itself onto your tongue where it does
a totally disarming Medlar Gel sort of a seduction and you end up sitting there
like a dumbstruck zombie, wondering what could possibly happen next.
I don't mean to sound ambiguous.
What happens next is the damn thing does its long dryout
tease with those perfect tannins and still leaves a marshmallow waft of
blackcurrant/blueberry/red currant/aniseed ring magic sitting in the middle of
your head.
Not to mention the perfumed fields of Provence. Bliss
out, baby.
Watch everybody come over all quiet.
It will become a very famous and much more expensive wine
than this.
Trust Unca Phil.
The remainder of the 2015 premium release will be launched internationally on October 15.
Watch DRINKSTER for previews in late September.
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