Dandelion Vineyards Enchanted Garden of the Eden Valley Riesling 2016 ($27.50; 11% alcohol; screw cap) is much the better-settled wine after a year or so in bottle: it's creamy, smooth and alluring, where many others are sharp and crunchy with acid like a smashed windscreen. That winemaker Elena Brooks has picked and made the wine to be virtually dry at just eleven alcohols and still achieve this gentility and comfort is a great credit to her indomitable gastronomic intelligence. It reminds me a little of Dr Ernie Loosen's Riesling from the Pfalz part of Germany. It has an aged lime-and-ginger marmalade notion to it, and it's just a teeny bit toasty. I admit to guzzling half a bottle in no time at all with not one thought of accompanying food. It's just that easy. Cool.
Dandelion Vineyards Lion's Tooth of McLaren Vale Shiraz Riesling 2013 ($27.50; 14.5% alcohol; screw cap) is no printer's error.
Having recently suggested that too much McLaren Vale Shiraz looks like it's pruned for vast lazy yields if indeed it's been pruned at all the writer took some comforting flak which was hungrily sucked in. You gotta love it.
All that cosmetic nonsense about geological tastings and Scarce Earths and whatnot will never fix this embayment's Shiraz: they've been at their geology-driven misplaced marketing sophistry for ten years now, to no obvious avail to the buyer.
All they need to do is what I've told them at too many committee meetings: check the average price achieved per tonne, relate it to the vineyards' geologies, and admit that there are easily-discerned parts of the vignoble where people probably shouldn't bother with Shiraz, or any other grape, as their work tarnishes the very fine and reliable job done elsewhere in the district by committed professionals.
No likelihood of that, given the powers that be.
Then, just yesterday, the UK's most influential wine journal, Decanter, reported a tasting of Australian Shiraz priced between ₤8 and ₤20 and simply suggested that "McLaren Vale was the biggest disappointment, with the largest proportion of 'bland, unremarkable' wines."
Every likelihood of that, given the powers that be.
That price bracket's supposed to be this region's forté, for Bacchus' sake. Like AU$13 to $33? Piss it in!
Uh-huh.
On the other hand, Walter Clappis' The Hedonist was singled out for exceptional praise. That's on Kurrajong piedmont geology: just about my favourite for Shiraz. Think Marius. And Drew Noon's Grenache.
There's nothing new about blending a little Riesling in Shiraz. Charlie Melton's been doing it from the start: his old Barossa bush vine vineyard has Riesling vines speckled through its Shiraz, to be picked together. The Riesling contributes some focussing, drying acidity. Saves on the tartaric additions.
While I review this 2013 wine - there's still a skerrick around the trade - there's some advantage in seeing the wine with a little bottle maturity. This blend could well solve the Shiraz problem for some, although you wouldn't want everybody running off doing it like they stupidly did with Viognier. Most of those folks should get some sensible pruning done and limit their yields or get on the dozer and start a fire.
We need more native vegetation around the place: especially in the bit I call The Wok, on the lowest cracking clays from Willunga down past the airport to Aldinga. That would restore one fine marsh for tourists and wildlife: you could even hide three or four intensive eco-villages in there: small two-story houses facing in to shared courtyards in the bush.
This Lion's Tooth is about the Riesling: just five per cent of the blend. The admixture seems to have brought some pleasing crunch to the blackberry Shiraz. It's not that shattered windscreen acid, but even the bouquet seems a bit closer to honed Damascus steel than your usual gloopy jam.
You get a tidier finish without having to squeeze too much tannin from the skins and pips.
The entire wine is more stylish and stylised, is more appetising and entertaining, and leaves you more bright and keen than the types of McLaren Vale Shiraz that nobody loves.
There's a new vintage emerging now: I'll review it when it hits.
And if the Poms at Decanter don't like it, I'll drink at least half of it.
As for the Dandelion Vineyards Legacy of the Barossa Pedro Ximenéz XXXO ($60 375ml; 19.5% alcohol; screw cap)?
I hear there's a change of name in the pipeline: Zar Brooks is now calling this Legacy of Australia, perhaps because old soleras like Karl Lindner's Barossa barrel hoard end up absorbing bits and pieces of wine from all over the place as they settle into great age.
The Lindner stack has been sitting there growing and glowering for nearly seventy years.
This isn't gloopy, either, in spite of that alcoholic strength. It has an acrid, dusty sherris-sack in its bouquet. Below that wells the simmering fruit mince, with plenty of rind. It's sweet, sure, but has severe acidity and what blenders called rancio: that illusion of dryness that comes with great age and oxidation of fortified wine in the barrel stack.
This wine's perfect sipping with nuts, raisins and soft-to-runny cheese. Given its lovely composure and obvious breeding, it's cheap at this price.
It has finer form than many of the popular cooked/boiled versions from Jerez. Seriously.
Heat emulates age, but is never so genteel. Let the Brits drink Jerez.
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