Inkwell Wines

Inkwell Wines is a very small boutique winery in McLaren Vale. It's one of the passions of Dudley Brown who despite having a seppo accent, is actually an Aussie and a very nice guy indeed. He is a single vineyard kinda guy right down to using wild yeast and making sure it's his own wild yeast that's doing the ferment. Wild yeasts are by nature unpredictable, but he doesn't mind that as it's character he's after.

At this stage much of his Shiraz fruit is going to Chapel Hill's Vicar, which has won numerous awards. But more about the Shiraz in a bit.

It is because he originally hailed from the US that I wanted to track him down and try his Zinfandel. I figured a Yank should be able to make a good Zin in Australia, if anyone can. Dudley planted his Zinfandel a few years back, and when he did he picked the meanest bit of ground he could find for it to see if he could tame the difficult to grow vine. His success was mixed in that he was right that it was a hard bit of ground and so had a bugger of a time getting it to grow in one patch. Various amounts and types of poo eventually solved the problem. Dudley thinks if you only grow Shiraz you're a wimp.

The 2009 vintage weather was even nastier than the ground with a horrible hot spell wiping out a lot of the fruit, and the wine came out lighter than a classic Zin so he called it a Primitivo, which is the Italian version made from this grape. This wine immediately has you thinking of spiced cherries, it's light in colour but not light in the mouth, with very fine tannins. I reckon fore go the traditional xmas cherries and have a bottle of this instead. We got a barrel preview of the 2010 Zin as well, and it's something to look forward to for sure.

Dudley also gave us a preview of the bottled but as yet available 2008 Inkwell Shiraz as he thinks it needs to gestate a little bit longer. He is aiming to make wines that are going to go 10 years, at least, and a wine with enough structure to do that can be rather daunting when in it's formative years.

This wine is a tad sneaky, with the first sip I'm thinking oh yes it's full bodied alright, good fruit, and as you might expect from a wine planning to last a while, the tannins are still a tad grippy in the poor young thing. Then another sip, and the taste buds looked over at the gums, and the gums metaphorically winked back whilst daring the tongue to resist licking them. The tongue joined the Borg.

This wine is big, but it's like an elephant in a tutu. Thing is, I reckon that this Pachyderm can dance like Baryshnikov, it's just that it's going to take a few years before it's actually graceful.

I'm going to hold out and save my rating until it's released, but if you'll take my advice you'll keep an eye out for that day.

Dudley is very passionate about the Vale, and deserves a bloody big pat on the back for fighting for it.

Madeleines Musque Chardonnay 2009

Gah a white! Well, I was planning on having some freshly shelled prawns and it just seemed the right choice.

I'm pretty hard to please with Chardonnay because, as I've ranted before, I like the big old style. Briefly, whilst this is not an old style, this is probably the best Chard I've had this year, and well ahead of all but one or two others, which to be fair had some age.

Quality stuff.

(Chris, can you make a special barrel next year just for me and the other die hards that won't give up on the big ones?)

Longwood 2007 Shiraz (cleanskin)

I opened a bottle of this on Friday, and about 3/4 of it got consumed. I put the lid back on and proceded to have a weekend of too much xmas cheer. Tonight I found the 1/4 bottle.

Impressively, the wine is noticably better tonight. The fresh bottle has plenty of yummy fruit but a very slightly bitter finish which I suspect is from the ample tannins, and also has somewhat noticable acid. All good things for cellaring, and nothing that stopped me enjoying it Friday.

But tonight after very extended breathing it's all come together so well. The fruit is more complex, the tannins are more subdued, and even the acid has softened beautifully.

Phil, the winemaker, hints this may live forever. I reckon he may be right.

Not sure how much, if any, is left. Highly Recommended for cellaring and ****.

Lazy Ballerina 2008 Shiraz

James Hook, the winemaker at Lazy B makes two Shiraz, a straight and a Shiraz Viognier. This is the wine with only red grapes, and it's the one I prefer. My wife disagrees with me.

This wine is just lovely, the sort where the glass seems to empty itself, and far too quickly - I keep looking for the Nac Mac Feegles stealing me wine.

Nice plum purple-crimson, with a nose that makes you smile as though you know some private joke, though in my case I probably just look like a grinning idiot. But I reckon the joke's on anyone who hasn't tried this wine.

Quite fine tannins, just grippy enough to keep the flavour on your tongue and hint that it's got some years ahead of it yet. Really nice fruit that has you licking your gums because your taste buds tell you that is a good idea, and they're right. The acid integration is just so smooth that I reckon Rob Thomas was having a glass of this at some point and had an epiphany. Balanced, classy and yum.

Highly Recommended and ****

Madeleines Primitivo 2008

This is somewhat of a new variety in the Australian scene, where Primitivo has it's roots in Italy and is a close DNA sibling of Zinfandel. Both are probably originally cloned from a parent vine in Croatia.

I opened this about 3 hours before dinner to decant. Early tasting at that time it had some green stalks, and bit of sulpher to blow off. The acid was fairly noticable with a slight raspberry tang. It improved a fair bit after breathing.

Drank most of it with dinner, a Moroccan Beef Tagine, and it was an excellent match. The wine coped with the strong spices well, and the lower than Shiraz fruit sweetness was a bonus with such rich food.

Finishing a glass after dinner, the black fruits were more obvious, as too the floral aromas. Tannins firm but not too dry. One of my guests guessed it was a BV shiraz, and I can see why given some of the 2007 Shiraz we've had lately with their imposing tannins, but this one is a bit of an individual and the best Primitivo/Zinfandel I've had in Australia, though sadly that group is small for now.

Rated as Highly Recommended, particularly with food.

Big Chardonnay - The Red Drinker's White, R.I.P

Summer is coming soon to Adelaide, and I'm here in Broome at the moment which is reminding me a cool white on a hot night is a good thing. The trouble is I'm really not much of a white fan, they are generally quite acidic without any strong fruit to offset that for my palate.

Dear Winemaker,
I used to enjoy the truly big Aussie Chardonnay, the type with the kitchen sink thrown at it, not picked too early, buttery malolactic ferment, considerable time on lees, and a fair whack of oak resulting in a full flavour white. I say 'used to' because they seem to be dead, gone, forgotten. At least by winemakers.

I appreciate that acidic bland Sav Blanc has been on a growth spurt lately, but did you really need to completely abandon lovers of  truly big Aussie Chard? Is there any sense in all of you moving all of your Chard production to the new 'compete with SB' acidic style Chard? Did you not consider big whites to be a taste bud stepping stone to developing an interest in reds?

The funny thing is one producer didn't and Giaconda gets $150 a bottle for their Chard simply because it is truly big, and Parker in the US loves em big.

So, here's my challenge, if any winemaker thinks they still make a big old fashioned Aussie chard, send me a bottle and if it really truly is big I'll sing your praises for a year, at least, not to mention buying a few cases, probably every year, for life. Because I'm tired of buying promises not kept.

I somehow think I'm more likely to see a Thylacine this summer. The madmen killed that off to make room for other things too.

In the meantime I'm also wondering why there are so few sparkling reds out there, it's another market segment mostly being ignored right now.

Thank Baccus for the golden one known as aged Reisling this summer.

Tim Smith MGS 2009

As I said on twitter, you know a wine is good when you've finished you first glass, (which you've poured to review), and not a word written yet.

(10 minutes later...second glass)

I seem to be having trouble describing this wine.

Ok, so I'm getting the typical Grenache red fruit aromas but there's a level of complexity added by the Mataro which is hard to describe, and therefore I'll throw out words like cedar, tobacco and old socks. I'm admitting right here to stealing the term 'old socks', it's what a friend uses when she can't describe a certain aroma. We reckon she means the kind of smell that Silton has, though somewhat more subtle in wines usually.

The flavour is savoury and spicy, but not peppery. The fruit is definitely there but slightly hanging back like the cute girl who hasn't worked out she's cute yet. The oak is hiding behind the cute girl. The tannins can't seem to decide what they want to do for me; at first I decided they're a bit clingy, then next taste I reckon they're just self assured, but quite frankly they're clearly female tannins cos they have me quite confused yet wanting more of whatever they want to give. 

There's probably a long lingering finish, but I seem to take another sip before the previous one fades.

Drink it with beef burgundy. I did.

Highly recommended. Very cellarable, 10 years at least.

* No MGS was harmed in the making of the boeuf bourguignon, though a pitiful wretch from Moppa Rd redeemed himself.