Eccolo Sangiovese 2012

We typically have home made pizza on Friday nights, so I thought I'd open this Sangiovese, seeing how both have Italian origins. My wife made hamburgers, of course.

This is not really a hamburger wine.

Then again, I was told by Mark and Anna Day, who make the Italian Amarone-style Koltz Pagan, that some of their customers paired that beast with fish and chips. I applaud their decision to not decide between the two, and telling the pairing gods to go jump. Pagans all around.

Mark and Anna also make this wine. I'd explain why they call it Eccolo and not Koltz, but I forgot to ask, and who cares anyway. What I do know, is there is also an Eccolo Sagrantino, and Eccolo Garganega (clearly named by someone who had a mouthful of it at the time), and all three of 'em come from the Adelaide Hills. They are all bloody good, thus clearly the choice of vineyard locations was spot on.

Back to the Sangio. First sip, I'm thinking "this is very nice", then about 15 seconds later the flavour really wells up and I'm now thinking "bloody hell this is good!". There really isn't very many wines that do that. Savoury? Yeah, of course, but it's the lively fruit that you really notice. It's fairly full bodied but light on it's feet. I reckon I could drink a fair bit over summer, and autumn, and spring. I'm saving winter for Pagan rituals.

I'm having a hard time scoring it, I feel I may be swayed by how incredibly nice the winemakers are. I also happen to know Mr. P. White has already reviewed this recently, and what if I score it higher? I try to be a hard marker, I don't like to trump everyone else's points, I have more hair on my head than me eyebrows after all. Right, I'm going with Highly Recommended+, so probably a 93/94 on the White scale.

P.S. Actually, it went really well with the hamburger. So now I've got a bottle of 2012 Pagan (incredible wine!) just waiting for some fush & chups.

P.P.S. Apparently PW thinks it's a 92++, he's probably been into the vodka again, but he'll be correct in a few more years.

Burge Family Winemakers Mourvedre Grenache 2010

Let's be clear here, we are talking about wine made by the Barossan Burge who still makes all his own wine, and his name is Rick. The other Burge winemaker is Grant, they are cousins and their wineries are close, but their wines have far less in common than the winery name might lead you to erroneously assume.

Rick makes his wines in a quite refined somewhat old world style. Of course he's making them with good Aussie new world fruit, so we get the best of both worlds.

There's a lovely balance and poise to this wine. It's one of those slurpers that you try to roll around on the back of your tongue for a few milliseconds more, just to make sure you've got all the good stuff coating yer buds. And then you suck on the insides of your cheeks because you don't have any taste buds there. After that you lick yer gums, for obvious reasons.

As a bit of a Mourvedre fan, I'm rather pleased to say it's a little different to every other Mataro I've met, but in an interesting way. Perhaps it's mis-labelled and it's got Monastrell in it instead?

As not much of a Grenache fan, I'm also very pleased to say there ain't no raspberries in here. This Rick fellow seems to know his vines.

Savoury yet fruit driven, voluptuously slinky, balanced and with a long future should the cork gods be on your side. Roughly 60/40 dry grown Mourv and Grenache, that lived in old oak for 22 months.
Highly Recommended++ and *****



Slight rant on the cork, I hate them, a lot. However, Rick is one of the few who at least attempt to replace wines with the same vintage should you suffer cork problems, which is extremely rare - replacing with same vintage I mean, cork problems are by nature unpredictable. They do keep a decent amount of museum stock, which is not a bad way to buy some well aged wines, especially their Draycott Shiraz.