Tuesday, 31 March 2009
The benefits of adding our contact details to the mailing list came into play one morning in early January.
The Jim Barry 2008 Boxing Day Sale email arrived at a point when the wine rack had vacancies and I was pondering popping off to the bottle shop to see whether they’d managed to find more of the Marlborough sauvignon blanc cleanskin Jimbo described as New Zealand in a bottle. I wasn’t sure whether the 2006 Silly Mid On Sauvignon Blanc Semillon was going to be quite in the same glass, but $60/dozen for a wine where the current vintage was on offer at three times the price had me reaching for the back copies of Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion which suggested while it might be just past its best (Drink 2008) it was rated at 87.
Fine, I thought. It’s not as if we’re looking for something for long term cellaring. That’ll make one dozen. One became two, when I noted the next special, 2006 Watervale Riesling, on offer at $84/dozen (current vintage $174, RRP around $15/bottle) , rated a 90 with a “drink by” date of 2014. Somehow I didn’t think it’d last that long.
Finally, if I was inclined to outlay another $120 I could have a dozen of The Lodge Hill Shiraz 2004. Rating 92. Drink by 2014. Count me in.
Adding $63 for freight might, under other circumstances, have made me stop to think, but $327 for three dozen worked out to an average price of just over $9 per bottle, right in the long-term preferred average price per bottle.
Delivery was remarkably rapid and it wasn’t long before I was stowing bottles in the wine rack and chilling a couple of whites in the fridge.
I started sampling with the Silly Mid On, with an aromatic nose and plenty of tropical fruit notes on the palate. There was a bit of citrus there as well, and a lingering finish that makes for ideal summer drinking. As previously noted, long term cellaring was out of the question.
Given recent rave reviews of Riesling, I wasn’t going to wait too long before I tried the Watervale. Clean nose, plenty of lemon and lime in the mouth and a refreshing finish. Describing the wine as immensely approachable was right on the money.
I don’t think I’ll have many bottles left in 2010, never mind 2014.
The first Lodge Hill Shiraz 2004 was opened up beside a Saturday night steak. With spice and blackberries in the bouquet, deeply purple-red in the glass with the fruit characters we’d noted right across the Clare shiraz we’d sampled while we were there, it’s definitely an attractive style. You could cellar this for a while, but again, given the fact the wine fridge is ull and there are other wines in the rack that really should be going into the cellar facility once there’s room I don’t think it’s a likely outcome.
As a more-than-satisfied customer, needless to say Hughesy is looking forward to similar email advisories in the future.