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Tyrell’s Vat 11 2002 Baulkham Shiraz, originally uploaded by Kevglobal.
I bought this wine at Sydney Australia Duty Free on my way back from a recent conference. The Duty Free shops in Australia are brilliant for good wine and good wine values.
I thought about buying a nice premium wine, such as D’Arenberg’s Dead Arm. But instead, I bought Suw a quite nice pare of opal ear rings set in white gold as a late wedding present. Instead, of buying something pricey, I decided to buy two bottles of moderately priced wine.
Fortunately, one of the sales staff at duty free also said that he was a judge at regional wine competitions, and he definitely seemed to know his stuff. I wanted to buy two bottles of good Aussie Shiraz, and he made a good point, which is that buying a Shiraz that had some time in the bottle was important. It being such a big wine, it needed some time to reach it’s peak.
He steered me in the direction this bottle of Tyrrell’s. He said that it was a special selection, with the winemaker choosing the grapes and using a special retro label that was like the style that he grew up with.
The wine was lovely. It is a very good representative of the meaty style of Shiraz that Australian winemakers are so good at making. It’s a huge red with a good balance, even tannins and acicity with a lovely smoky character. It’s a good wine with either red meat or mushrooms. Have plenty of water on hand because as Suw and I have found with so many Shiraz wines, it can leave your mouth a little dry. But a top bottle at a reasonable price.
I couldn’t believe that they had a bottle of Penfolds signature wine, Grange, at duty free at Changi Airport in Singapore. The bottles were even numbered like original copies of the Beatle’s white album. Now, the bottle would set you back S$550, or more than US$360. A little out of the drinks budget this month. Ahem.
But top traveller tip. They had an impressive selection of Australian and French wines. From Australia, they had Rosemont’s Hill of Gold Shiraz and Penfolks Bin 707 Cab Sav.
The French wines were from premier appellations including Margaux, Pauillac and Pomerol. To put this in perspective, three of Bordeaux’s five premier cru chateaus are in Pauillac: Château Lafite-Rothschild, Château Latour, and Château Mouton-Rothschild. They didn’t have any premier cru on offer, but I’m not surprised those are pricey.
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Tags: wine, penfolds, australia, france, Changi Airport, Singapore
Suw and I spent Christmas 2005 in Brugge, and just off the market square, we found a brilliant little wine shop, Cuvee. The owner had that wonderful balance of knowing the wine he stocked without being intimidating his customers. Most of all, he just loved to talk about wine. Suw reckoned that the owner was impressed with my pronunciation of the Portuguese red wine that we bought, which is why he was so gracious. I think he was one of those wine shop owners who truly loves what he does and enjoys talking wine with his customers.
With New Year’s just around the corner, I thought we should get some champagne He had a great selection, but he suggested Larmandier-Bernier. I don’t know much about champagne. In the US, we yanks only drink a bit of bubbly – usually a splash at New Year’s and then at weddings. It’s purely for celebrations and special occasions. Here in Britain, it seems any ‘ole excuse will do. Leaving do’s, birthdays, big dates and rainy days in London all seem sufficient reason to pop the cork. But I’m learning. Suw and I went to a champagne tasting last autumn with a representative from one of the major houses – Ruinart. I wrote about it over on Suw’s blog.
Larmandier-Bernier is a grower’s champagne, one of the smaller vineyards that produce champagne. The owner of Cuvee told us that it usually is only found in 5-star restaurants and rarely is found in wine shops. In fact, last March, I did find it for $90 a bottle at Colors restaurant in New York. Ouch.
Suw and I bought a bottle of LB Blanc de Blanc for only €31, which to be honest is a steal. It is without a doubt, the best champagne I’ve had at any price. Champagne is sweet, fizzy and fun, but as a wine, I don’t usually come away impressed. Maybe that’s
the point. But why not have a bit of sweet, fizzy, fun with a little bit of elegance and structure? That’s what we got with Larmandier-Bernier. Vanilla, brioche and almond with enough behind it to not only drink as an apéritif, but also to drink right through dinner.
We searched long and hard for it when we got back to Britain. About the only place where we’ve found a place to buy it is Vine Trail in Bristol. Alas, we couldn’t find a place where we could pick it up on an impulse buy, until I changed jobs and found Flâneur, which is ever so conveniently on my way home from work. Unfortunately, they only have the Brut and not the Blanc de Blanc. Fortunately, for our wine budget, it’s not closer to hand. Top tip: Keep an eye out for it when you’re out at restaurants. It will dent your pocketbook there, but it’s worth it.
It’s a good way to start out a New Year and a new blog with a great port like Taylor’s Quinta de Terra Feita 1996.
Before I get into talking about the wine, I’ll mention a little bit about why I started this blog. I already blog at Strange Attractor with my partner Suw Charman, but we write about new media, journalism, public relations, blogging – in short, our day jobs. This is to write about everything else, all my other interests: Wine, wilderness backpacking, food, writing, books, travel, music. I guess it’s also to encourage myself to think about those things a little more and work a little less.
Ok, enough about that. That’s what an about page is for, right? Back to talking about wine in general, and this port in particular. I love vintage port, and a good Taylor’s vintage can be sublime. Why does sublime have to cost so much? A good bottle of Taylor’s vintage can set you back well over $100 (£60), but a single quinta vintage is usually half that.
I bought a 1985 Taylor’s vintage for a special occasion a few years back for about that. I can’t vouch for that port because it’s cellaring at my parent’s waiting for the right special occasion. Well, cellar is a bit of an overstatement. Yes, it is their cellar, but a basement in Illinois is hardly a posh wine cellar in the European vein. I have had a Kopke 1985 vintage which is good value money: Rich, smooth with the whole blackcurrant, raisin and a hint of tobacco that a good vintage promises. 1985 was supposed to be a stellar year for port, a classic year in fact, although from what I’ve heard, the wines haven’t always lived up to that promise. Fingers crossed that my 1985 Taylor’s lives up to the reputation.
My parents and I traveled to Porto in September 2005. I wanted to treat them for their 40th anniversary, and we learned a lot about Port wine as we went from port house to port house. Port makers do not declare vintage every year, only the years that meet a certain standard. It used to be that the houses declared vintage independently, but now there is a port wine trade association that determines whether a year meets the standard to declare vintage. Vintage is declared only during amazing years.
Taylor has two quintas, two vineyards, from which they will blend to create a vintage port: Quinta de Vargellas and Quinta de Terra Feita. As the Winedoctor says, Quinta de Vargellas forms the backbone of Taylor’s vintage. Suw and I have had a glass of Quinta de Vargellas at our favourite wine bar, Wine Wharf down in Borough Market. At £7 a glass, it’s a bit of an indulgence, but it was wonderful. It’s velvety and smooth, just like a good vintage should be.
It’s not as common for Taylor to make a single quinta from Terra Feita, but this 1996 was excellent, especially for £19.95 a bottle. I hate to bang on about prices, but this is a stellar, no a sublime, bottle of wine without that sublime price tag. Rich, smooth, strong. We had it with friends to celebrate a New Year and the anniversary of a couple of friends who met at the same dinner last year. It was a worthy bottle of wine for a special occasion.
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