The Six is an interesting concept, Olssen being one of the few vineyardsthat have access to all six of the classic red varieties of Bordeaux - Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc are all pretty common, but Malbec and Petit Verdot are rarer, while Carmenere is nowadays only found in Chile (where imported cuttings were thought to be Merlot) and a few Australian vineyards.
With Madam in Japan for another three weeks, however, it'll be a while before we get to sample The Six, but there was no way I was going to be waiting till the new financial year to try the contents of the other box.
I kicked off with the 2006 Shiraz Mataro, which at $26 is hardly a budget line. It turned out to be a rounded, complex but very balanced style, and at 14.5% alc/vol almost alarmingly easy drinking. I found myself bemused by the rapidity with which the contents had disappeared, so while it’s a tasty drop it’s not one for lengthy sessions sitting around with a couple of mates. In circumstances where one bottle could turn into two or three (I really liked that one, Hughesy./ Well, in that case we’d better open another) it could well sneak up on you.
A visit to any of the cellar doors around the Clare Valley is likely to start off with the winery's Riesling, and throughout our visit in November '08 we were never disappointed with what we were presented with first up. Some, of course, were better than others, but nothing we sampled was any less than excellent, so better is probably a dodgy bit of terminology.
Much of the variation is down to the way the fruit comes out of the vineyard, since there's not much winemakers can do with the juice once it has been separated from the stalks and skins. Most of the really impressive Rieslings we tried were the result of free run juice without anything that had come out of the presses added to the mix, but that's not going to happen with a base line wine, and the Olssen 2008 Riesling (at $20) is definitely the base line offering in the range, at least as far as price is concerned. From the first whiff it was obvious here’s one of the better expressions of Watervale Riesling, and the taste confirmed that, with a steely minerality running through the citrus notes on the palate. While there may well be a free run element in the mix (the notes on the back panel don't divulge such details and, as noted above, there's no website to go to for technical details) we're obviously looking at seriously high quality grapes handled just right. Outstanding. This is one wine I'd definitely be reordering if it wasn't for the quantity of Riesling lurking on the premises. 94 points from Halliday and it's easy to see why. At $20 (factor in freight and make it $22), exceptional value for Hughesy's money.
Changes to the way I’ve set these pages up, general slackness and the fact that I opened The Second Six when friends dropped by mean that reviews of the other wines, including The Olssen Six will be found under Tastings rather than hereabouts.