The Margaret River region continues to excel in the styles it is famous for
THE wines listed below are the most interesting of the 200 we have tasted in the past month, which retail from $18 to $35 and have not been reviewed on these pages yet.
There are two Margaret River semillon sauvignon blancs, a Margaret River chardonnay and a shiraz viognier from the Yarra Valley and a Margaret River shiraz.
2008 Vasse Felix Classic Dry White
There must be 200 2008 semillon sauvignon blancs for sale with about half largely bland eastern states versions, hoping to cash in on another WA financial bonanza.
This Vasse Felix release is among the nicest and best value from the 2008 vintage.
While zesty and delicious, this wine also shows a serious side with its youthful, classy, long and beautifully textured characters.
In the past, you had to drink wines of this style in their first 12 months but this one will be still improving by the end of 2009.
17.8points $19.95
2007 Vasse Felix Chardonnay
Margaret River chardonnays are changing en masse from their idiosyncratic voluminous, viscous, worked, long and powerful style to higher acid, leaner and more fruit-driven styles.
This wine typifies the new style and while having some volume on the viscous palate, it is round and dry despite the reasonably high though almost unnoticeable acidity that is enveloped by or hidden by the subtle density and serious nature of the fruit quality.
This also has greater fruit purity and intensity than in the past, which typifies the direction that chardonnays are moving to.
This will be better in six to 12 months and will live easily until 2013.
17.9pts $25.00
2008 Lenton Brae Semillon Sauvignon Blanc
This wine was the subject of a long article by the widely respected wine columnist Huon Hooke in the past week.
The Lenton Brae Semillon Sauvignon Blanc is consistently among Margaret River’s most intense, pungent, appealing and greatest values in this style.
This, as always, is an overt and bold (perhaps consistently the most overt and bold of all the big names) mouthful of intense, round, lively and zesty semillon and sauvignon blanc flavours.
This is not of a classic style but it is proudly WA.
It relaxes and satisfies with the familiar and gluggable chilled crisp, lively and fresh tropical fruit flavours that combine easily with WA’s warm weather, simple fresh fish and salad dishes.
17.8pts $19.95
2006 Cape Mentelle Shiraz
The legendary Cape Mentelle Cabernet Tasting was a marvellously organised affair late last year and the wines were truly great.
The day was everything that you could expect or hope for.
There was a surprise though.
Perhaps because it was unexpected, one of the most exciting and enlightening happenings of the weekend was trying the just-released 2006 Cape Mentelle Shiraz that senior winemaker Rob Mann displayed in an unrelated small comparative tasting.
The 2006 vintage in Margaret River was extremely cool. It has carried the tag of providing cabernet sauvignons that are not up to their usual standards.
In this instance though, the dense, dry, fine and elegant, white pepper shiraz, with its enormous length, is reminiscent of a classic Rhone-style and it is marvellous drinking now and will remain so for a decade.
The 2005 vintage (18.5pts), which I regard as being a stand-out, is easily matched by this more subtle 2006 release (18.5pts) and this wine will more easily match a greater range of dishes.
This is a clear departure in style for this already very highly reviewed label, perhaps vintage caused, and while you’ll find it a finer and more international style, I think that it will be my preference, as the years go by, as this label’s future.
This is a great WA shiraz.
18.5pts $35
2006 Yering Station Shiraz Viognier
The Rathbone family are defying the wine industry’s “doom and gloom” publicity and because they are competent, they confidently continue to expand and improve their winery portfolio.
Having done an extraordinary job developing the Yarra Valley’s Yering Station they have now weaved the same magic in buying and then regenerating the wineries at Mount Langi Ghiran, Parker (of Coonawarra) and more recently at Xanadu in Margaret River.
This wine is both a quality and value for money winner.
It was the best of 28 masked shiraz tried recently and is of a totally different style to the Cape Mentelle above.
It has been made to provide delicious early drinking.
It is soft, smooth, balanced, easy and round.
The fruit quality is better than you would expect at this price point.
There are no corners or edges, the mouth-feel is beautifully textured and best of all the wine lingers… and lingers… satisfyingly.
18.1pts $24