86 points
From Clevedon, New Zealand.
I bought two bottles of this wine after reading a good review partly because I was born in Ness Valley, Clevedon, New Zealand. There are now a number of wineries there, some of real quality.
This is a Merlot dominant bordeaux blend.
Quite stylish, very nice savoury oak. Not a syrupy alcoholic wine as many top NZ reds from 2002 are. A very impressive early start for this winery, as the critics have said. Elegant fine wine, though lacking in serious backbone and depth. Certainly none of the fruit cake ripeness of a St.Emilion or Pomerol. Good acid, matches well to food, will drink best in a couple of years, not for long term cellaring.
Young vines show.
What really disappoints me about this wine is the pricing. NZ$50 from the winery, and nearby village shops. This is no way to build a brand and gain serious attention. This is MBA pricing (the owner has an MBA). And their other lesser wines are at $32 – even less appealing. Wineries with no track record can’t justify these prices. I disagree with Bob Cambell who argues that this is worth buying while you can, ie suggesting this will soon be an unobtainable superstar wine (and at higher prices still). A safer bet is that this is probably as good a wine as they will ever make. Many well run, well funded wineries make great starts but ultimately it’s the vineyard that decides their potential and most probably it will be modest.
I note that Arahura a nearby neighbour in Ness Valley Clevedon started with some impressive young vine bordeaux blends. 5+ years on they have failed to beat this start.
Bob does Oz
Robert Parker’s annual report on Australia is out for 2005. 852 wines (out of 3000+ tasted !) selected as scoring more than 83 points.
Parker says that old vine Shiraz and Grenache from Barossa, Clare, & McLaren Vale and the fortifieds from Rutherglen are our greatest treasures. And he was pleasantly surprised by the very high quality of our Rieslings.
But Australian critics are likely to be surprised by his restrained enthusiasm for some of our cool climate icons.
In part this is Parker’s taste. He prefers bigger, richer wines (I’m sure he cut his teeth on Californian wines). But his is also an international (ie not Australian) perspective. Warm climate reds are what Australia does best. Barossa shiraz can be truly unique on the world stage. Australians can sometimes undervalue it because there is so much of it available locally. Whereas a cool climate shiraz from say Canberra is a refreshing change and therefore is sometimes overvalued.
To say that Shiraz is the wine that Australia does best, and that Australian Cabernet is comparatively weak or plain poor is relatively uncontroversial to an overseas wine critic, but would shock many Australians.
All in all the Australian wine industry should be pleased with Parker. He gives a lot of praise and effectively does a great deal to promote Australian fine wine. And if he does write “of course, there is plenty of industrial crap that I wasted days tasting through” – we all know he is right.