I have got a good mate Brad Hickey, ex-sommelier from New York City, who lives in McLaren Vale and is part of the team at Thorpe Wines. He and I have been bantering back and forth about doing a special wine dinner featuring various wines from my need-to-be-drunk-cellar so we picked a date, he shouted me a plane ticket and voilà - it happened. Not to miss such a great opportunity, I padded the trip with a few extra days and made a preliminary detour to the Barossa and Eden Valleys.

Day and Night One

Lately I have been stuck into Max Allen’s new tome (The Future Makers: Australian Wines for the 21st Century) and is was slightly awe inspiring to spend a day and an amazing night with the type of folks he highlights in his book. Dave Brookes from Teusner Wines was the first person I decided to follow when I signed up for Twitter and a slightly eerie thing was that he was from the very small town in New Zealand where I had my wine bar and restaurant. Dave was a most gracious host and we started the day off at Teusner with a full spectrum of their wines to taste. The Teusner range of wines represent exceptional quality and value starting the entry level Riebke Shiraz all the way through to the Astral Series which is made from 130 year old vines.

Then we headed off for a vineyard tour of the Eden Valley where I paid homage to some of the most respected sites in Australian wine such as the Henschke’s Hill of Grace (the Grandfather plot with vines planted in 1860!) and the Jacob’s Creek Steingarten Vineyard from whence the famous Riesling is made. It was quite interesting to see the effect that altitude and aspect have on vines – the Steingarten vines, though over 50 years old, were quite small and thin compared to the Barossa Valley floor brethren.

Next stop was a visit with Dan Standish and Fraser McKinley (Fraser makes his own wines under the Sami-Odi label) where we tasted barrel samples from the new vintage for Standish Wine Company and Dan’s other label Massena. As any readers of this column may note, I am a big fan of Dan’s wines – especially the accessible and affordable Massena range and the standout Howling Dog which is reviewed below.

Final stop for the day was with Tom Shobbrook, Gourmet Traveller Wine’s young wine maker of the year. If there were a wine maker that epitomizes Max Allen’s future winemaker moniker it would be Tom Shobbrook. After 6 years in Italy, meshed in the Italian wine world, Tom returned to the Barossa to take over management of some of his family’s vines and migrate them to organic and biodynamic viticulture. The one word that kept popping into my mind while barrel sampling Tom’s latest vintage was ‘pure’ – his wines seem to possess such a balance and linear purity. Keep a look out for his wines (he also makes the entry level Tommy Ruff label as well as wonderfully eclectic Didi label) if you want to treat yourself to something special.

To cap the day off, my visit was perfectly timed with the monthly Spice Club get together (wonderfully hosted by Fraser McKinley) where 10 or so local winemakers bring anonymous bottles of wine to play a wine options game similar to Twenty Questions. It was great fun, a great challenge and most memorable. Many thanks to Dave Brookes and friends.

Day Two

This was really the raison d’être for the trip; a wine dinner featuring lots of wines from my cellar plus many beautiful gems contributed by my mate Brad’s generous McLaren Vale friends. It was a great night on many counts, not just for the wine, but the wine certainly proved interesting in terms of expectations and essentially some mild disappointments. The star of the night for me was the 1990 Les Cailloux Cuvee Centenaire Chateauneuf du Pape which continues to reinforce my belief that the 1990 vintage on the whole will eclipse the 1989 by far.

Day Three

And finally, though I maybe should have collapsed by now into vino heap, there was the Grenache Tasting, organized by (again) my mate Brad Hickey and Tom Kriegshauser (Sales Manager for Yangarra Estate Vineyard where the tasting was held). Grenache is one of my favourite grape varieties but it has a bit of a mixed reputation in the wine world that seems to come mostly from badly made Grenache - lolly water stuff. Well there was no lolly water here, pretty much exceptional, but very different representations of the grape, from all parts of the wine growing world. Quite a bit of debating went on, especially between Steve Pannell (winemaker) and Phillip White (wine critic), but I think the general consensus was Grenache is a great grape for Australia. Fave of the day on the expensive side was Torbreck Les Amis 2006 and SC Pannell 2006. More affordable and still quite quaffable was the 2008 Artazuri from Spain @ $25 or so a bottle.

Teusner The Dog Strangler Mataro 2009 $24 - $26

“The Dog Strangler” (in French - estrangle chien) is one of the many odd synonyms for the grape variety Mataro (Mouvedre or Monastrell are a few other well known names). “The Chicken Choker”, from what I have been reliably told by a few wine folks, is one of Teusner’s Dave Brookes many nicknames. Some see a very close link but I am not so sure having spent the day touring with the man. This wine is sold out at the winery so keep your eyes peeled to find and pick up a bottle (or 3) as it is a stunner – all black tar and oozing with fruit and most quaffable - NOW. Some wine blogger folks say that Mataro is the new black – if this is the bottle of wine they are basing that call on they be right.

Massena The Howling Dog Petite Sirah (Durif) 2008 $38

This was an amazing wine for me, probably will be one of my favourites for 2010 by a long shot. This is really, really serious juice – on my first big sniff I was transported back in time to my California days when I was first getting acquainted with the Petite Syrah of the likes of Ridge Vineyards. According to the Massena tasting notes, the name Petite Sirah acknowledges that the variety produces Shiraz-like berries but of a much smaller size which in turn results in a wine of far deeper colour and rich tannins. Tannins so rich and deep that when the tasters first slurped the wine, they let out a howl as the tannins crossed their palates – thus, The Howling Dog.

Domaine Lucci (Lucy Margaux Vineyard) Red 2009 $20 - $22

Unfortunately this wine is so little known round these parts that there is no bottle image to be found of the current release. This wine is made by Tom Shobbrook’s partner in crime Anton van Klopper at Lucy Margaux Vineyards. What a delight and the best word I can come up with is ‘vibrant’ – it just seems to jump out of the glass and have a ethereal texture. If you want to taste an affordable example of the future wine makers wine, this be one to try. FYI - I have tracked it down in Melbourne at Black Hearts and Sparrows.

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