Paracombe Adelaide Hills The Rueben 2010
$21; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap; 93+++ points
As the 2009 model of this bargain Bordeaux-style blend won the highest points of any entry in last year’s Royal Melbourne Wine Show, I’ve been keen to see what the follow-up would be like. Like? Love. It’s brash now, in this its youth, and it’s more austere than the 09 was when it got all them big numbers in Melbourne. But it has all the right ingredients to repeat the style, if not that staggering score. It’s Cabernet sauvignon 46%, Merlot 23%, Cabernet franc 17%, Malbec 11% and Shiraz 3%. French barrels have given it a nose-tickling edge, but the fruits are pressing against the barriers immediately behind, threatening to topple the fence and come spilling through. It’s all a briary tangle of blackberry, blackcurrant, blueberry, juniper and mulberry, and given another ten months, it’ll be in such balance and form that it’ll show great swathes of Bordeaux its dust. Neat, precise, tight and tantalizing now; silk-and-velvet slipperyness coming soon. Slow-roast lamb belly in caramelized red onions, parsnips and mash is the go now while it’s tannic and taut; by Summer, when it’s softened a tad, it’ll be better with juicy cutlets and fresh black pepper with a squeeze of lemon juice. Like the 09, it’s a stunning bargain at this price. Try to put some away.
Marchand and Burch Porongorup Chardonnay 2011
$73; 13% alcohol; screw cap; 93+ points
Jeff Burch, owner of Western Australia’s Howard Park and Madfish, formed this duet with Burgundian Pascal Marchand to edge the wild west a few notches closer to Burgundy. More Mersault than Montrachet, this big bubba would trick many a discerning palate in the blind wine races. Hazelnuts, cinder toffee (aka honeycomb in Australia) and gingernut biscuits wallow about the bouquet on most levels, then there’s an angle of it that smells like the fur on a quince. It also has a prickly top breeze like the granite of the Pongorurup Range (north of Albany) on a summer day. The flavour’s rich and cuddly, approaching chamomile tea in some ways, and leaning gently against valerian and its powerful pheremonal iso-valeric acid. Its sweetness, no doubt a result of the mysterious voodoo that occurs with wild yeast barrel ferments, is verging on the discernable, adding unction and body to what was already a formidable Chardonnay. A cassoulet from the beginning of winter, not the end, would do the business with it right now. By the end of winter, when that pot’s been simmering away for months, absorbing no end of kitchen scraps, you’d have a Pinot. 93+ points
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