Wednesday, 9 December 2009
Well, maybe not as far as Hughesy's concerned although some may question the wisdom of buying a second case of wine to avoid the $21.50 freight charge for delivery from Clare to country Queensland. A dozen would have been enough to cover most of the Jim Barry range, but two cases would deliver multiples and, until the end of November the winery was offering free freight on orders of that magnitude. There's also the question of holiday drinking and having a range on hand to offer visitors to the Little House of Concrete. A dozen might have been adequate, but two dozen works better.
The final order that ended up going in skipped the bubbly at the top of the list (we've got enough bottles to fill our medium term needs in that regard) and a case of whites and another of reds was the logical framework to operate in.
If you're talking Clare whites the selection's likely to lean towards Riesling, but I'm partial to Silly Mid On Sauvignon Blanc Semillon, so the mix ended up as four 2009 Watervale Riesling, three each of The 2008 Lodge Hill Riesling and Silly Mid On and singles of The Florita Rieslings from 2005 and 2007. The breakdown for the reds was much the same - four 2005 Three Little Pigs Shiraz Malbec Cabernet, three each of the 2007 The Cover Drive Cabernet Sauvignon and The Lodge Hill Shiraz with a 2005 The First Eleven Cabernet Sauvignon and a 2005 The McRae Wood Shiraz.
So, out of two dozen twenty for day to day drinking and four for later consumption after a spell in the wine fridge.
Predictably I started at the bottom of the range, though putting the word bottom alongside the 2009 Watervale Riesling doesn't seem quite right On the other hand, since every winery in Clare has something more or less comparable on offer. As a starting point when the only direction is up you might be at the bottom of a hill but the hill is Mount Everest and you're at base camp on the Khumbu Glacier. You’re about to start the climb, but you're already a long way above sea level.
As far as the wine itself is concerned, it's the usual bright straw colour in the glass, and all the regulation citrus notes are present on the nose, and again in the glass. It's a perfectly delicious argument for the style and yet another reminder of the extreme value for money represented by genuine varietal Riesling. It'll probably last a good four to five years, but if you start with a dozen and you've got much left at the end of twelve months I'd be admiring your restraint.
Elsewhere on the site I've had a bit to say about packaging, and the three labels that the winery uses for the Silly Mid On Sauvignon Blanc Semillon might cause some to push the wine to one side on the grounds of gimmickry, but the 2008's good enough to stand on its own two feet.
A blend of Adelaide Hills savvy blanc with Clare Valley semillon it’s a drink now style, spices and grass on the nose, with plenty of fruit on the palate. While it's obvious that you're looking at a Sauvignon Blanc, the Semillon brings other influences to the party for a win that'll go down well on a summer afternoon around the pool or down at the beach.
Having started with the Watervale Riesling, it made sense to try The Lodge Hill 2008 Riesling in close proximity to the younger sibling, and an interesting exercise it was. The Lodge Hill's a lighter, more delicate style on the surface, with a less pronounced nose, but obviously a wine for the medium to long term. There's plenty to like in the glass, but with another twelve to eighteen months there'll be more on offer as the elements lurking under the surface start to rise. All in all, an argument for knocking over your stock of the Watervale in the meantime. If you can do that you'll probably be giving yourself a pat on the back if you're tucking into a bottle of the '08 The Lodge Hill around the middle of the next decade.
Having worked through the drink in the near future whites, by Christmas night I was looking for something to wash down supper, and my hand was drawn to the 2005 Three Little Pigs Shiraz Malbec Cabernet. I had fond memories of the "nicely peppery" 2004 from our visit to the winery.

Like the Silly Mid On, you might glance at the label (half a dozen versions, featuring three pigs engaged in decidedly non-pig activity) and push the bottle to one side on the grounds that gimmicky packaging diverts attention from what's in the bottle, but it only takes one whiff of what's on offer on the nose to allay any concerns. You could spend quite a while trying to identify separate notes on a rather complex bouquet, but given the nose I was really interested in what was contained in the glass, and the complexity on the nose is more than matched in the glass, a medium-bodied style with well-balanced mouthfeel.
It's a very savoury (a word that comes to mind with increasing frequency these days) style, and extremely food-friendly wine that went really well with the long-simmered sugo alla bolognese. By comparison with the Three Little Pigs, the label on The Cover Drive Cabernet Sauvignon is a tad on the austere side, a cigarette card-sized graphic on the front, a briefly descriptive label on the back, but it's what's inside the bottle that matters.
In that regard the 2007 Cover Drive goes straight along the deck to the boundary in a most impressive fashion. Like the shot, Coonawarra Cabernet is a wine style that brings a round of polite applause from the aficionado and this one is a classy number, a little on the young side, perhaps, but there's plenty to like both on the nose and over the palate. There's a mix of notes in the bouquet, and once it hits the palate you're into nicely structured tannins with a lengthy follow through. Having matched it with a lamb casserole I continued to savour the remainder of the bottle watching a predictably bloodthirsty documentary about medieval Scots history, and a spell contemplating various historical issues after it finished. It's the sort of wine that lends itself to such pursuits.
Having recently finished the last of my 2004 The Lodge Hill Shiraz it's no wonder I left the 2007 version till the end of the process of working my way through the drink reasonably soon styles in the order. After all, I had a fair idea what lay in store.
Deeply purple-red in the glass with fruit and spice notes on the nose, the 2007's a very drinkable style with rounded tannins and a lingering finish that runs right through to the end, which is more than I could say for the rain-shortened Twenty20 game I watched as the bottle level fell steadily.
So, looking back over the order, with the cellaring prospects (the two Floritas, The First XI and The McRae Wood) safely consigned to the Wine Fridge, what have we learned?
For a start, based on tasting these, you could quite safely order any of these mid-range wines and be guaranteed of getting a good wine. James Halliday rates them between 89 and the low nineties, which ain't too shabby at all.
However, given other factors involved (North Queensland summer, the need to run down stocks in case we're away later in the hot rainy season, and the number of wineries I need to sample are three of the most obvious ones) it'll be a while before I'll placing an order, and when that happens it'll more than likely be the result of an email announcing a clearance sale.
An alternative scenario, involving Hughesy's membership of The Wine Society could well kick in around the end of the financial year. Given the scheduled arrival of five cases of wine through the year and a need to reorder to reach a designated target to maintain freight-free status that's an issue that may well be reviewed in the not-too-distant future.
The rich, full-bodied 92-Halliday-points The Lodge Hill makes a pretty strong argument for doing that, and the fact that its siblings aren't far behind adds further fuel to the fire.