McLAREN VALE SCARCE EARTHS SHIRAZ

WHITE DEPARTS CHAPEL HILL photo DRAGAN RADOCAJ

Early Plunge Beats Gun In Vales
Great Idea Not Fully Researched
They'll Get On With It Anyway
by PHILIP WHITE

Scarce Earth is McLaren Vale’s new project to distinguish local Shiraz wines of a certain quality. It’s been invented and run by the McLaren Vale Grape Wine and Tourism Association, a name and acronym perfectly reflective of this splendid district’s attention to detail in marketing.

To wear the little Scare-serse neck ribbon, wines must be from a single vineyard, and pass the scrutiny of a panel of judges, winemakers and merchants, from near and afar.

While the adoption of an almost unpronounceable name displeased this writer’s sensibility it also provokes questions like: how scarce is Bay of Biscay black cracking clay? McLaren Vale's planted far too much of it to grapes. Should we start counting its vast ponderosas in the Bay of Biscay, the Barossa, or in the Aldinga Basin (known in Casa Blanco as The Wok)?

It’s obviously been a rush job, getting this scheme together. It deserved a little more thought, before it hit the market. Too many snappy local Shiraz wines are not there – they didn’t want to be. All the best of the wines are on the market too early. Given their styles, many are too young, really, to judge, let alone drink. And when I look at some of these prices, I would be expecting another year of careful husbandry by the winemaker before I rave to my readers about them, uncertain of their potential.

Which is not to say they are bad wines.

So how good are they? I presume the winemakers of McLaren Vale would prefer we chose not to rank them as judged at their own recent Bushing King Wine Show. Five of them got all the way up to bronze, which means that they are sound wines and safe to drink. Five.

I finally got to taste the wines today, after several have sold out. While this was not a masked tasting, I have been much more generous than the judges at McLaren Vale. But then, I think a masked tasting, for those who know their business, is the equivalent of giving a motoring writer a Jaguar for a week. All its badges and nameplates have been removed in the trust that the critic will not realize it’s a Jaguar.

I tasted them first thing this morning in The Star Of Greece with two British wine scribes, Rosie Davenport and Fiona Beckett, and local MW, Drew Noon. It was a happy morning, given the complexities of the task and the nature of Monday mornings in general, although that place is simply perfect on such a bonnie day. But I needed more time in the bottles.

I brought those initial notes home with the opened wines, and tasted them all again after six hours, and revisted again late in the evening. Some points changed dramatically for the better; a few plunged. This is due to the youth of the wines and their styles.

The Scarce Earth propaganda says the judges’ role is to “assess each wine to ensure that site is expressed in the glass and the wine free of overt winemaking influences.”

The most profound influences on the wines I tasted today went (1) winemaker and oak, (2) drought, and (3) site. You could probably replace (2) and (3) with “viticulturer” long before considering geology, but that leads inexorably to “accountant” and “the board” and down we go.

"Oak, by the way, does not
grow in McLaren Vale.
It comes, if you’re smart,
from the best forests of France."

It looks to me as if some winemakers, when confronted with the Scarce Earths idea, simply chose not to blend everything as they usually do. Instead, they bought some expensive wood, and kept a few barrels of their favourite block aside. Or they simply selected the best barrels already in the stack. They also permitted/conjured a much higher level of tannin than the usual soulful softness of the Vales wines, exaggerated, no doubt, by the drought.

I know the judges threw wines out for their overt oak, but varying oak and tannin philosophies still played a very major role in determining the quality and style of the 2009 Scarce Earths. It was, after all a blistering hot vintage. When our heat went east across the border, Victoria burnt down.

Oak, by the way, does not grow in McLaren Vale. It comes, if you’re smart, from the best forests of France.

I am sure this project has the capacity to work, in the long term, to give the consumer an idea of the incredible range of flavours the Willunga Embayment, or McLaren Vale, has to offer. But how anybody knows this early in the piece what the very-recently delineated geologies of the district mean, and how they would be expressed in the glass, beats me. First, the local winemakers must understand it. They’ve taken a fair jump opening the door, hoping the market will follow them through their learning curve.

And pay for it. A great deal in most cases.

FRONT HILLS NEAR ALDINGA photo MILTON WORDLEY

In some circles, there was a certain presumption, from the start, that this new appellation would provide everybody in the region an opportunity, or excuse, to make a $100 Shiraz. I think I still have the e-mail. I suggested at the time that winemakers are like chefs. Many drive taxis. Most work in fast food joints and greasy joe’s. A few work near the top. And then you get one Cheong.

It is consoling to see that one winegrower has chosen to acknowledge their rank by keeping their prices somewhere near fair. The consumer will acknowledge this. And it looks like the $50 on the Hugh Hamilton wine was acceptable too, as it’s sold out. Not surprising, really. To me it was the most typically McLaren Vale wine, as it was soft and soulful and approachable, if a little hot in the exhalation. The grandchildren will be scared of you.

These reviews are in order of tasting.

Joseph Angel Gully Clarendon Shiraz 2009

$75; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1998; 345 doz., 90++ points

It seems to me the maker here is longing for the Italian Piedmont: I remember baby Nebbiolos with similar form to this. It’s a woody ultra-modern north Italy style in its shape, but with soot, Irish Moss cough gels, and prune aromas. High country very old rocks dry grown McLaren Vale Shiraz. Bigger than Nebbi, of course, but you get my drift. Although the wood becomes a little sharper in the same time, a beautiful comforting fruit fleshiness develops with 6 hours air, a sort of gentle milk chocolate creme. The soot remains. The wine has a slightly syrupy yet strapping palate with tannins that remind me of dried apple (common in many low-yield vineyards in the drought) and dried oatmeal. It needs at least six years.

Five Geese Wines McLaren Vale Reserve Shiraz 2009

$48; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1990; 300 doz.; 80++ points

bronze medal 2011 McLaren Vale Wine Show

Deliciously fat and juicy to sniff, this high Blewett looks to me like it got one new barrel too many. The sophistry of the coffee and mocha oak, and its lemony flavours are a little too intrusive. They may recede, but I doubt it – they still scratch my nostrils after it’s had six hours’ air. The fruit is obviously very intense and slick, but much other than its juvenile prune and mulberry can’t shine through that wood. It’s in the old school Penfolds style, without the VA.

Chapel Hill The Chosen House Block McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$55; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1977; 100 doz., 93+++ points

At first pour, this seemed all pure carbon and lignite and the fruit of vines tortured by drought. It’s woody, but it somehow suits. It showed some raspberry, prune and fig, but the palate was hard going and tannic. Six hours later, we have flesh: the pale chocolate crême caramel. The wine has lost some of brittle piety, and let itself show some sinuous flex. Its tannin is pure drought vintage stuff: persistent and ungiving to the point that at first it looks like it may have been added, which I’m sure is not the case in the powdered tannin sense. A fair deal of looks like it comes from oak. But it’s delicious wine now, after nine hours. Forget it for five years. It may be even better in fifteen. It is the most Australian of wines.

THE CHAPEL HILL GOURMET RETREAT ... BETWEEN THE VINEYARDS, AS SEEN FROM THE WINERY phono PHILIP WHITE

Chapel Hill The Chosen Road Block McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$55; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1993; 167 doz.; 88+ points

On opening, this wine smelled like that village in Bandol where the florist is between the charcuterie and the coffee shop. It snapped at me: dark meats, mocha, and florals, over old tea tin, deadly nightshade, juniper berries, somebody burning coal … with some cassis. Six hours on, it’s velvety, and the palate is slender, with a little learned suppleness, but it’s still quite severely dry, with staunch coaldust tannins. The gap between these two wines diminished over that time: they became more similar. Now they’re chalk and cheese again. I’m convinced the House Block will be the greater wine in time.

Coriole The Soloist Single Vineyard Shiraz 2009

$45; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1969; 500 doz.; 83+ points

Like many of the other wines in this comparison, this one seemed to show more characteristics typical of the drought year and its winemaker than your actual terroir or geology. It was modest, almost shy in this company, perhaps because it has more sympathetic oak. It had twists of reduced spinach, and its dusty tannins sucked the blood clean through one’s gums. It also seemed just slightly doughy. Six hours on, it’s more tomato leaf and the nightshade family, with a slightly sultry blackberries-in-kirsch fruitiness. There’s aniseed, too. The fruit is lean but constant beneath some quite dry mealy tannins.

d’Arenberg The Eight Iron Single Vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$99; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1960; 330 doz.; 89+ points

The alcohols and the drought tannins seemed a bit big for the fruit on pouring. It was not exceptional, but had pleasing tweaks of raspberry and musk in a jammy nose, and the hot, tannic palate of the wine reminded me of most of the south of France. Six hours’ air has seen some acrid acetone bootpolish crawl out, and aniseed, juniper and soot. It tickles the nose hairs. The palate has more supple, sinuous flesh, and just as the whole thing seems less of a rip-off it eventually gets jammy. The finish seems a little doughy, and that serious tea-tin tannin made me yearn for a cuppa, and a hot scone with blackberry jam and whipped cream. Not many wines have done that to me. It could be a beauty in four years. Or it could still be just like this.

d’Arenberg The Fruit Bat Single Vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$99; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1920; 330 dozen; 92++ points

Wet old barn straw d’Arry in the classic mould, with oyster mushrooms and batshit seemed to be the go on opening: a slender thing, with mushy old tannins like waterlogged rowboats. It grew slightly prettier in the six hours, picking up some musk and confectioner’s sugar. And some leather. And then some aniseed. The tannins seemed a little sweeter, too. It’s a perfect example of traditional family winemaking determination dominating terroir. And very much like what d’Arry used to call his Burgundy. Although I reckon d’Arry woulda stuck the hose in this, I really like it. More air the better.

d’Arenberg The Little Venice Single Vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$99; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1997; 330 dozen; 79+ points

Another twisted pixie: first pour: tar; peat; black old bretty oak; fig; prune; strange fresh oyster aroma. Six hours on: all the above, with a gentle rise of whitepepper fruit, lemon pith and blackberry. Whole thing looks much healthier. The palate has acidic astringency and a certain appetizing tease about it. And then that hot alcohol in the afterbreath. And then the pucker of all that tannin. And now, thirteen hours after opening, it’s beginning to settle. Just. Who knows?

Serafino Terremoto McLaren Vale Single Vineyard Syrah 2009

$110; 14.5% alcohol; Diam cork; planted ????; 600 doz.; 80+ points

First up, this reminded me of the style of red Wolf Blass and Johnny Glaetzer made in the late ’seventies. It is stacked with the smooth sophistry of an expensive cooper. Sweet, modern, sophisticated wine. Silky, velvety cordial with modest acidity. After six hours, it looked pretty much the same. Aniseed, soot, and then the fruit: prune and mulberry, with a dusting of musky confectioner’s sugar. Some bootpolish. Wood-derived smells. Not sensual.

Hugh Hamilton Single Vineyard McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$50; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted ????; ??? doz.; sold out; 93+ points

Gigondas in style – a hotter year – this was a mellow, smooth confection at the start, not greatly sophisticated, mercifully, but rich with earthy and rural aromas, and smooth, clean, appetizing berries. There’s the faintest hint of the old white pepper canister, and maybe a whisper of eucalypty methol. It has perfectly appropriate tannins that are better balanced than many of these wines: here, they’re still demanding, but more smoothly assimilated and serve mainly to titillate, not overwhelm. In other words, it’s the most McLaren Vale style in the line. It's a bit hot in the tail, but a wine I’d like to drink a lot more of. Damn!

Sabella McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$25; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1910; 7000 litres; 82+ points

Ancient subterranean salt began to move during the drought, which may begin to explain why this wine, from creekline vineyards, reminded me of the Robe fruit that goes into St Henri, or many of the reds of Mornington Peninsula: even the aroma seems reminiscent of seaside dunes. This had subsided after six hours: like Langhorne Creek the muddy berry fruit seems to rise up, with its cute florals, faint chocolate and gently lemony oak. The palate became more stroppy and cheeky; the wine brighter and fresher at six hours. Another few hours and it’s going fluffy and jammy. Simple: don’t wait! A good honest effort by the Trott Family Trophy winners 2011, this is obviously the bargain of the bunch, or at least the most honestly-priced.

THE WILLUNGA EMBAYMENT, McLAREN VALE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA photo STACEY POTHOVEN

Penny’s Hill Footprint McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$65; 15% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1991-96; ??? doz.; 90+ points

bronze medal 2011 McLaren Vale Wine Show

Very complex, but harmonious and assimilated, with moody moss and sod below, and musky confectionery topnotes, this wine looked very impressive from the start. Acrid vetiver-like meadow pasture wafted across the glass at first. For a moment, I thought of Castagna. After six hours, the palate is elegant and slender, willowy and appetizing, more authoritative without being forceful or blustery, and very different in style to all the preceding wines. Thirteen hours in, it’s the mossy sod with some nose-twitchy oak and fresh-split slate. The oak finally tastes like nutmeg. The fruit is better than the winemaking.

Halifax Per Se Block McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$50; 14% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1998; 40 doz.; 85+ points

Tense, impenetrable carbon and blackness seemed this baby’s hallmarks on opening: the palate was tight and brittle like the fruit of many drought vineyards’, but not terribly: the wine reminded me of the style common around Vacqueyras. After six hours we got aniseed and licorice; maybe fennel aromas; and to make it Australian, maybe eucalypts. It’s cute and sassy. The palate has neat fruit and some juniper/bay leaf tannin which makes it all quite pleasing and chirpy.

Shingleback Unedited Single Vineyard Mclaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$70; 15.5% alcohol; Diam cork; planted 1995; >30 doz.; 85 points

bronze medal, 2011 McLaren Vale Wine Show

On opening, this seemed a slender, racy, neat and elegant wine with fruity blackcurrant gels and not much hint of its alcoholic force. It seemed to have a whiff of the seaside about it: dunal grasses or something. After six hours, it had become a fairly boisterous hulk to sniff: full of alcohol and darkness with glowering mulberry concentrate and some anise. The palate, however stays reasonably strappy and slurpy, while it leaves fairly hot, sharp afterbreath, it’s not too jammy; the tannins are much more approachable than in many of the more intense Scarcities. With, say, pigeons or mutton shanks with black olives in the sauce, not a bad drink now to 2015.

Brash Higgins SHZ McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$37; 14.7% alcohol; screw cap; planted ????; 305 doz.; 87++ points

This one smelled hot and acrid at first, with hints of samphire flats, cordite, and hot rusty iron. But quickly the tweaks of mint and menthol and caster sugar began to appear. Six hours later it’s a more wholesome and comforting thing, with a well of blackberries and mulberries simmering below those cute topnotes, and reflections of them in the lingering, warmish afterbreath. The tannins are persistent in sucking one’s precious bodily fluids through the delicate interior skin of the lips, like some of the brutes above. Macho cross-dresser. It gets sweeter and jammy after thirteen hours.

Vinrock McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$40; 14.7% alcohol; screw cap; planted 1998; 60 doz.; 76++ points

bronze medal 2011 McLaren Vale Wine Show

Very basically, this seemed shut and snarly when provoked at the beginning. It’s picked up in six hours, and seems to want to be in the Halifax/Brash Higgins/Sabella school. It seems like it’s been hammered out of water and black granite. Humourless and taut, and reflective of the drought. Good name.

Kangarilla Road Scarce Earth Project McLaren Vale Shiraz 2009

$50; 14% alcohol; screw cap; planted ????; ??? doz.; 78++ points

bronze medal 2011 McLaren Vale Wine Show

Iron, mint, cassis, lemonwater and tannin? Okay. Bring it on. It was like that to begin. Drought year. But after that six hours’ air, we have a more presentable, wholesome wine: elegant and poised. It has saucy menthol and anise, and has grown some dark charcuterie meats. It’s more glowering and pacing. The palate is not forced; the aroma of the oak is sympathic to the fruit, supporting it without too much competition. But its tannins and sap are still a little intrusive and raw, and the wine seems unfairly treated, being on the market at such a price in such a juvenile state. Which can be said of most of the 2009 Scarce Earths. VIEW FROM THE VERANDA, SETTLEMENT WINES, SEAVIEW ROAD ... HOME OF THE BEST WOOD-OVEN PIZZAS SOUTH OF PUGLIA photo PHILIP WHITE