Thursday, 24 June 2010
Like everybody who isn't independently wealthy, for much of the past thirty years I've had to operate on a budget, so Hughesy's wine purchases worked out somewhere around a $10/bottle average. That gained a formal basis when we were structuring the finances prior to Hughesy's retirement, when I set about keeping an actual accurate record of what I was spending on wine.
A key ingredient in that long term average was the excellent value offered by the budget end of The Wine Society's catalogue, but once we'd visited Tahbilk and signed up for their wine club another factor came into play.
Tahbilk is an interesting operation, combining quality iconic wines (the Marsanne in particular, though their reds are not to be sneezed at) with a wider variety of varietals, old growth wines with newer plantings and wines at various price points to suit a variety of budgets. We liked everything we tried while we were there, but it wasn't till the first bi-monthly magazine arrived in the PO Box that I realised how good the options were at the budget end of the fspectrum. You can head off to $40 territory for the 1927 Vines Marsanne (and a ten-year-old one at that) or head into the fifties for the 2004 Eric Stevens Purbrick Cabernet Sauvignon, but there's extreme value for money in the Everyday Drinking Range and their standard releases.
Base line reds for $13.45 freight free is good value for anybody's money, but what you can find in their Everyday Drinking Range is remarkable value for money.
We started, for example, with dozens of the Everyday Drinking 2004 Sauvignon Blanc and 2003 Cabernets for less than $110 back in March 2007, and at various stages we've tried the Riesling from the same range. I didn’t just like them, I went back for more.
Regularly, and I’ve got the spreadsheet to prove it.
Then around May 2009 the Classic Dry White Cleanskin turned up in one of the little slips they sneak into the top of the carton that arrives on your doorstep. .
At $45/dozen freight free it's remarkably good value for money, and was an immediate addition to the regular purchasing schedule. I've tried it out on various visitors since then, and reactions have been universally favourable.
That quality, price point and availability has continued much longer than I'd anticipated, and every time I visit the Web Specials section of the website it's still there, much to the delight of one mate's budget.
These days, when I put in an order, it'll always be a dozen of that cleanskin white, another of the Chairman's Red (both of which are largely headed to The Barra, but I keep a couple of bottles of each for home consumption) and will usually include one of the other mixed dozens that turn up in the various parts of the website.
Those $13.45 reds turn up, for instance, in a Cellar Door Choice dozen for $142. That's three of the current Grenache, Merlot and Sangiovese along with $12.55 whites (the Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon, and Verdelho) for $142, freight free or around $11.83 a throw.
These days, under normal circumstances, the real cheapies end up as cooking wines, with what's needed for the recipe going into the pot and the rest knocked over with lunch over the next day or two, while the contents of the mixed dozen slot nicely into the day to day drinking scenario.
The whites from that Cellar Door Dozen have been making their way from the wine rack to the bar fridge, and it was the 2009 Sauvignon Blanc that actually prompted this article.
While it's doesn't have all those characters that Australian wine drinkers have apparently come to know and love, most of them are there - gooseberry and tropical fruits in abundance, the cats' pee a notable absentee - and it's a crisp dry style that's a refreshing drink. It'll be interesting to see if there's any left when summer rolls around, as it'd be an excellent summer lunch option.
The 2009 Verdelho was a pleasant reminder of a variety I've liked in the past but haven't seen much lately. That's hardly surprising given the fact that recent purchases have come from the Clare Valley, the Barossa, Rutherglen and Glenrowan, which are largely Verdelho-free zones.
Again, we're looking at a summer lunch option here, though it'd also go well with seafood and Asian dishes. There's a pleasing acidity that sits alongside the citrusy characters and while the Hobart Wine Show mightn't be the be-all and end-all of the national show circuit the fact that the 2009 Verdelho collected a gold medal there means that some one around the traps liked it at least as much as I did.