KIWI RECORDS SMASHED; NO PANNELL BEATERS

PRESS RELEASE FROM STEVE PANNELL

Good News Story #1

Tonight, the title ‘Best Sauvignon Blanc’ has been wrenched from the hands of the Kiwis after a six-year strangehold, with the epithet awarded to Stephen Pannell and his S.C. Pannell 2007 Sauvignon Blanc.

The annual Tri-Nations Wine Challenge is a tough competition chaired by three judges who represent the who’s who of wine sovereignty in their respective nations – James Halliday (Australia), Bob Campbell MW (New Zealand) and Michael Fridjhon (South Africa). They choose just seven wines in each of the 15 categories, totalling 315 wines for judgment. The wines are entered by invitation-only, making these awards unique by world standards.

With Sauvignon Blanc being the signature variety of the New Zealand wine industry, this loss presents a crushing blow. Stephen Pannell, owner and winemaker of S.C. Pannell wines, strongly believes an Aussie win was long overdue. “The Kiwis won the Best Shiraz trophy yet again this year, so quite frankly the judging panel has assigned a little bit of justice. And we need to win something - it’s clearly not going to be in the cricket,” remarked Stephen.

The win also demonstrates that sauvignon blanc can reap some sound rewards with a little more time in bottle. Unlike his friends across the ditch, Stephen chooses to release his sauvignon blanc a year after vintage.

Good News Story #2

The Alternative Varieties Wine Show, held each year in Mildura is arguably the most exciting and intriguing show on the wine calendar. It aims to cultivate emerging varieties and styles, and is a true discovery ground, bringing to the fore the type of wines usually marginalised at mainsteam wine shows. It now attracts some 600+ entries from throughout Australia and New Zealand. The show has just wrapped up, and the panel led by Chair Max Allen reckoned the S.C. Pannell 2006 Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo an absolute stand-out, and was the only wine awarded Gold in its class.

Good News Story #3

On a recent trip to London, Stephen was hosting a dinner with renown Barolo producer G.D Vajra whom Stephen had also spent some time working with in 2004. It was the usual, very serious wine affair, with eight of London’s top Italian restaurant sommeliers in attendance. In one of the wine tasting brackets, guests were served the 2004 Langhe Nebbiolo from Vajra and S.C. Pannell’s own 2005 Adelaide Hills Nebbiolo. The wines were masked and the guests were told that one wine was an Aussie, the other an Italian, and the challenge was set for them to guess which was which.

Out of all sommeliers, only one of them got it right.

About Stephen Pannell

Stephen Pannell grew up in the wine industry as a member of the family which founded Moss Wood in 1967. Stephen’s extensive knowledge and experience has been garnered over many years working with some Australia’s iconic wineries (including Wirra Wirra, Hardy’s Tintara and BRL Hardy where he was Chief Red Winemaker from 1999 to 2003) alongside numerous overseas vintages at such places as Domaine des Comtes Lafon in Burgundy, Chateau Mouton Rothschild in Bordeaux and G.D. Vajra in Barolo. Other highlights in Stephen’s career include winning the title of International Red Winemaker of the Year at the International Wine Challenge in London, winning the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy at the Royal Melbourne Wine Show, twice winning the Max Schubert Trophy at the Adelaide Wine Show as well as being listed as one of the 50 most influential contributors to the world of wine by Decanter Magazine. In addition to establishing his own label, S.C.Pannell, Stephen has a wine consulting business withclients in Australia, Argentina, UK and Spain, and is a member of the Qantas wine selection panel. “This is a label which is well on the way to icon-status.” - James Halliday, The Australian Wine Companion 2008.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 21 November 2008

For further information and images, please contact: Llawela Forrest - RUN FORREST. M: 0400 586 991. E: llawela@runforrest.com.au

FOOTNOTE FROM PHILIP WHITE:

The new Pannell wines will soon be reviewed on DRANKSTER. The nebbiolo is from Frank and Rosie Baldasso's PROTERO vineyard between Gumeracha and Lobethal in the Adelaide Hills. For the latest PROTERO knockout, read the article below.

COMMENTS

Lord Byron said...

"They choose just seven wines in each of the 15 categories, totalling 315 wines for judgment. The wines are entered by invitation-only, making these awards unique by world standards."

While I quite like Steve's wines, and am growing sick and tired of over-cropped industrial Marlboroughs, I find the above quote very interesting. Is there any such thing as an honest blind wine competition anymore?

November 24, 2008 7:50 AM

AND ANOTHER ONE:

How many more of these claims are we gonna get from this tasting these three blokes had of wines they’d nominated themselves? This is the spin from McWilliams:

Press release

AUSTRALIA’S GREATEST WHITE WINE

AUSTRALIAN WINE THAT BEAT THE KIWIS AND SOUTH AFRICANS RELEASED TODAY!

An Australian wine which has garnered international attention and critical acclaim will be released in Australia today. Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon 2003, which won three trophies including ‘Best Wine of Show’ at the Tri Nations Wine Challenge, can now be found in limited quantities on shelves across Australia.

The wine’s ability to reward cellaring for up to 30 years is a rarity with Australian white wine and has been appreciated by international critics and wine show judges for more than five decades, however Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon is still relatively unknown among most Australian wine drinkers.

Described by leading UK wine critic Matthew Jukes as, “…the finest single vineyard Sem in the

world,” Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon has also been named a ‘Landmark Wine of Australia’

and is rated ‘Excellent’ on the prestigious Langton’s Classification of Australian Wine IV.

“Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon represents a style unique to Australia and the Hunter Valley, from a very special piece of soil in the region. I’m pleased that these distinctive elements have been recognized. It is also pleasing to see Australia once again demonstrate why we’re such a powerful player on the international wine stage,” Mr Ryan said.

The 2003 vintage of Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon – released today – won the Best Other

White Trophy, Best White Wine Trophy and Best Wine of Show Trophy at the Tri Nations Wine

Challenge, announced last Friday night. The wine has also won a gold medal at the International

Wine and Spirit Competition, in London, and a gold medal at the Melbourne Wine Show.

The Tri Nations Wine Challenge sees wines from Australia, New Zealand and Africa compete to win trophies in several categories. Wines can only be entered after receiving an invitation by an

esteemed group of judges that includes UK wine critic Robert Joseph, James Halliday (Australia), Bob Campbell MW (New Zealand) and Michael Fridjhon (South Africa).

Due to the tight criteria for entry and the status of the judging panel, the competition has quickly

established a reputation as one of the most challenging and demanding to win.

Overall, Australia – supported by the success of McWilliam’s Mount Pleasant Lovedale Semillon – was named as ‘Country of the Show’.

.

NOTHING LIKE A KNOCK ON THE HEAD

by PHILIP WHITE - This was published in The Independent Weekly on 14 NOV 08

Great week for thirst. Must have been that knock on the head. One minute I’m making a speech to a restaurant full of people about the wonders of Frank and Rosie Baldasso’s Protero wines, grown on the ridge between Gumeracha and Lobethal, and the next I’m regaining consciousness with a lovely blonde ambo asking are you still with us, Mr. White. Nice pink smudge of blood and hair on the wall at my head.

Having experience in these matters, I believe I woke demanding to know who’d hit me.

After an audacious and stunning repast in the Greedy Goose, 10/10, I’d attempted to stand, and with my slydexia and everything, got my chair caught in the carpet and went arse-up, headlong onto a brick window sill. Out cold. Years of painstaking back recuperation suddenly put back, well, years. And people think this job is easy.

Funny things, restaurants. The main reason for my need for recuperation was a restaurant. Auge. Or the blokes it had in it. Gary Steele, the ex-SAS Burgundy shipper of Domaine Wine Shippers, wanted me to take dinner with him and Roman Bratasiuk, the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science refugee who after many, many long lunches and a swillion beers in The Exeter, escaped government service to make a few feral wines vaguely after the style of his Balkan brethren, which of course attracted the attention of Robert Parker Jr. and eventually earned young Roman a scarlet Ferrari on his Clarendon Hills account. Steele arranged the dinner to patch up any misunderstandings I might have had with Bratasuik, but picked me up for a cuddle and fell on top of me. I knew that was gonna take a long time to heal before I even hit the floor. Gary is about 6'5" and 22 stone.

Bratasiuk is not my friend. He sells his wine through Steele and buys his Bordeaux and Burgundy from Steele. Steele is my friend. He would probably be a closer friend if I had enough of the Clarendon Hills money to buy Bordeaux and Burgundy from him.

But that was another restaurant, another time, and by the Protero dinner, I had almost repaired.

During a moist, confused epoch which might politely be called this, my most recent recuperation, I dreamed I heard Barack Obama claiming victory in the American elections. I thought I heard Laurie Oakes saying he’d written a book, and an Irishman saying the track was too hard for poor old Septimus. Something about the Reserve Bank. Dudley Brown, of Inkwell vineyard, loomed distortedly, claiming he’d won the Melbourne Cup sweep and that he hadn’t left the Republican Party; it had left him. There were thirteen wood ducks on the lawn. And then, through the whiskied mists of concussion, Paul Holloway said there would be no more housing in the wine regions of Barossa and McLaren Vale.

“Because the Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale are important economic areas of the state”, I dreamed I heard him say, “because they’re wine regions, also significant tourism regions, it would not make sense to have urban encroachment to a significant extent into those areas. So we’ll avoid those areas and the areas that we’ll be looking at for future expansion are those areas where there’ll be less impact on the important tourism and economic areas. So yes we do recognise those areas but look it’s simple common sense: why would you want to encroach on areas that are important to the economy because of the significant contribution that they make to the state’s economy through the wine industry and the tourism industry? Clearly that would be put at threat if we allowed rampant urban development within those areas.”

Clearly. Leaving the Barossa bit out for the moment - I’ll write about that end of the see-saw once my head has cleared and I’ve been up for a chat with the leading locals - the implications for McLaren Vale are enough for now. There’d been a stand-off for months, as rumours of government relaxing development restrictions on the key villages of the Willunga Basin had developers rattling their bulldozer keys and winegrowers panicking keenly about the value of their vineyards.

The main street of McLaren Vale is a developer’s breakfast. The tractor dealership on the corner of the main street and the Kangarilla Road has shut, so there’s another golden opportunity to make a mess. The ribbon development to McLaren Flat grows like cancer; the latter village is malignantly busting its boundaries. Willunga: ditto. More houses? Rather have a hole in the head.

Not to mention the little matters of the prospective Bowering Hill development – the last chance for the Vales vineyards and agriculture to actually reach the gulf St Vincent, patron of viticulturers - and Glenthorne Farm, O’Halloran Hill, on which the University wants to plant 1,000 houses.

Both these contentious villa rash prospects lie within the officially gazetted McLaren Vale geographic boundary. The northern boundary was quite deliberately drawn around Glenthorne to ensure nobody could in the future argue that it wasn’t part of the McLaren Vale wine district.

When the winery then called BRL-Hardy promised to buy the fruit the vineyards would produce under the deed the University signed, the boundary was drawn around Glenthorne so any wine thus made could be called McLaren Vale.

So what, prithee, could these dreams mean? What might the ambiguity of “urban encroachment to a significant extent” permit in the nefarious wiles of the future? Do 1,000 houses on Glenthorne add up to significant?

Patrick Conlon says the government will not release the Bowering Hill land for development, throwing the gauntlet back to winemakers to come up with a workable solution. Glenthorne Farm is another matter.

But back to the Olden Days and that Protero dinner. That was real. Viognier: elegant, austere, bone dry tannins. Lovely. Chardonnay: pears and schist. Lean, clean and bone dry. Appetising. Cabernet sauvignon: feminine, elegant, perfumed and floral. Cellar for five years. Merlot: think Bordeaux. Sweet, clean, pretty. Coffee and chicory; chocolate. A neat rival to the stunning Romney Park. Merlot cabernet: much better! More complex; cream and moss; beautiful natural acidity. Dry as a chip. Needs seven years.

Now Philip, don’t, whatever you do, don’t stand up too quickly ...