Friday, 27 November 2009
I thought I'd miscalculated.
Given the need to maintain a reasonable stock in the unit at Southport I'd done a bit of quick calculation and figured that since wine we order from Tahbilk on a Monday morning usually arrives on a Thursday afternoon, subtracting a day from the transit time to Bowen would mean a Monday morning order should arrive in Southport after lunch on Wednesday. We were arriving on Thursday afternoon, so a Tuesday morning order might lob on the doorstep before we did. No, I thought, order after lunch on Tuesday, which means they should ship it out Wednesday morning so it could well be there Friday morning. More likely Friday arvo, but you can never tell.
So in went the order - a mixed dozen covering the Rhone varietals, and a six pack of trophy-winning Marsanne - and off went Hughesy and ‘Er Indoors for a spell in Southport that would include a Ry Cooder concert. As the clock rolled past four o'clock on Friday afternoon, however, I figured that we'd be waiting till Monday and that I'd better do something to ensure that the red wine stocks remained at a suitable level over the weekend, which meant doing something I was trying to avoid.
Namely, visiting the bottle shop in Australia Fair.
Much of my unwillingness was the result of budget induced boredom as I made my selections from their heavily discounted section at the front of the store, so I passed straight through to what passes for the inner sanctum, which is where you find the more up-market lines. Surveying what was on offer a price tag advising that the Jamieson's Run Limestone Coast Cabernet Shiraz Merlot had been reduced to $9.99 caught my eye. I'd just grabbed a bottle when the young sales dude who'd been extolling the virtues of something or other (at that price we're better than Dan Murphy's) to a couple of other dudes and a stray dudette wandered over to ask if I was partial to a Merlot.
If you like Merlot, quoth he, there's this Jamieson's Run. Should be the same price but the tag must’ve blown away.
In any case, that was enough for Friday night, and expecting that we'd be passing Ferry Road and the decent grog shop in the complex over that way I thought I'd solved the temporary red wine deficiency rather well. I was back in the unit with a bottle open and breathing quietly when the intercom buzzer indicated an incoming communication which, rather surprisingly considering it was after 5:30, turned out to be about a delivery from Tahbilk.
As noted elsewhere I like to give wine deliveries a bit of time to recover from transport trauma, so I set about preparing the evening's lamb stew happily sampling the previously opened CSM rather than a more recent arrival.
Actually, given the $9.99 price tag, Hughesy was back in the grog shop relieving them of the remaining stock.
The following morning's Weekend Australian had the Tahbilk 2000 '1927 Vines' Marsanne in Halliday's Hundred, which was a pleasant discovery bearing in mind that we'd just received two bottles in the Marsanne Trophy pack, but Saturday night saw me opting for a Grenache from the Straight Rhones dozen.
Grenache is a relatively new addition to the estate-grown Tahbilk range, as the vines that they'd planted in 2005 are coming into production. Previous releases featuring the variety had used fruit sourced from McLaren Vale. The 2007 is a classy number (not that you'd expect anything else given the consistency of the Tahbilk range) with pleasant varietal fruit flavours and the hint of savoury pepper usually associated with the grape. A very easy drinking style that promises good things to come as the vines gain a bit of maturity.
Having visited the Southport Markets the following morning I needed something to go with oven-baked chicken breast with grape tomatoes, capers, olives and garlic and the Mediterranean flavours suggested that something out of the Straight Rhones dozen might be appropriate. I ended opting for the 2009 Viognier, and it turned out to be a great choice. As noted elsewhere, I'm quite partial to a varietal Viognier, and this one was very good drinking. A bit young, perhaps, but from the first whiff of the bright yellow liquid I was a very happy chappy indeed.
There's a pleasantly intense fragrance on the nose and plenty of citrusy apricot flavours on the palate with a crisp acid backbone delivering a lingering finish. It may well develop over the next year or two, but it's such a good drink now style right now that I don't think there'd be too much left if I were to invest in a dozen for summer drinking.
And ordering a dozen, or throwing a couple of bottles into a mixed dozen is a distinct possibility.
I'm not absolutely sure that dozen would be likely to include the 2009 Roussanne, though. Madam and I were both quite taken with the variety when we sampled it at the winery, but this was the first chance I'd had to try a subsequent vintage.
The variety is apparently difficult to work with in the vineyard, though you wouldn't guess that from the tropical fruit and acidity that combine to make a very drinkable drop.