$27; 13% alcohol;
screw cap; 88 points
The standard 'entry-level' Vasse has been given a fresh name
since the incorporation of new vineyards and the completion of an eight-year
program of rejuvenation of the original vines. Hazelnuts, cashew, cinder
toffee, butterscotch and buttery Comice pear make up a fairly traditional
Australian-style premium Chardonnay bouquet, more after the clunky old
Mountadam style than skinny, modern Mildura. The palate is lush and luxurious,
with precise acid and a splinter of fancy French oak, somewhere between lemony
and gingery. It'd be lovely with scallops grilled on their shells with little
shreds of mandarin peel then garnished with fresh spring onions.
Vasse Felix
Margaret River Chardonnay 2013
$37; 13% alcohol;
screw cap; 92++ points
This new inclusion in the range - everybody who's anybody
must have at least three Chardonnays in their arsenal these days - is made
after what the blurb calls 'the modern Margaret River style.' So what does this
mean? I think it's a bit like Penfolds Reserve Bin A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay
in spirit: toward medium-bodied Burgundy in style and weight, with finesse
rather than force. It smells of the coffee rock of the region, rainwet. It has
that flinty/carbide/cordite/gunpowder edge that many call
"minerality" or sometimes "reduced" - both terms which
confuse me. Its oak is gingery and prickly, its acid like lemon pith. It looks
a little brash and awkward in this its juvenile stage: if you can't wait a few
years, I'd be decanting it. It has the sharps that could handle mild pork
dishes, like well-roast belly cuts, a la The Elbow Room in McLaren Vale.
Vasse Felix
Heytesbury Margaret River Chardonnay 2013
$70; 13.5% alcohol;
screw cap; 93+++ points
Even more pointy and pushy, this punk opens with a sharp
cordite poke. You'd think a brat with that much cordite would simply shoot you
in the guts, but no, it's a nervous jab in the general direction of the kisser.
After that, the aggro settles: its fruit is creamy and slightly stewy, like
pears and peaches poaching gently together. Your assailant has come down off
his toes and does the big grovel here. "Sorry sorry sorry - this hurts me
a lot more than it hurts you!" The mid-palate is smooth and well
assimilated for a drink of such complexity and so many selected components. It
leaves the mouth cleansed - its acidity is forceful - but coated with a layer
of that poaching syrup. And then the aggro bits return to dominate: grainy
phenolic dryness (bauxite?) works the mouth long long after swallowing, setting
the salivaries on full gush and imbuing the guzzler with a desperate sense of
thirst and hunger. More please. With the cheese trolley from Les Crayères in
Reims. Biffo!
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