My Review System

oops thought I'd clicked publish on this quite some time back...

Rating
Cats piss (self explanatory)
Barely Drinkable (probably flawed or just plain very ordinary)
Acceptable (ho hum wine)
Agreeable (ok, well and truly drinkable)
-- You'll almost never see the above ratings here
Recommended (good quality wines)
Highly Recommended (faultless high quality wines)
Excellent (benchmark wines)
Outstanding (few and far between)
The Ultimate (almost as rare as rocking horse dung)

Value
* Bad news - wines with delusions of value
** Normally not worth buying unless its very high quality special occasion wine.
*** Beauty is in the eye of the beholder; average value for money.
**** The extra good value drops that we all search out.
***** Like hens teeth, the bargain of the year category.

Cellaring Potential
+ Likely to improve with some age
++ Certain to improve with some age
+++ Requires and will reward cellaring

1. My ratings are heavily based on the TORB system, and I try to mark as hard as he did and for exactly the same reason - I want to buy high quality wines at better than average value, and those need some work to find.

2. You probably won't see me actually review anything under Agreeable. I will rarely be able to justify trashing somebodies hard work - the exception is cheap plonk that I really think would please nobody and needs a warning label. Actually, as time has passed, I find I can only be bothered to write something up if it's at least Recommended, and there's a very large amount of wines never posted.

3. Conversely, very few wines will rate Outstanding unless they have some age to them. To me Outstanding should mean exactly that, standing out from the many good and great ones.

4. To indicate how I am guessing they will age I've roughly stolen Philip White's system, where no + means drink it's already at it's peak.

Rant
Right, now to explain why I refuse to use a 100 point system. TORB sums it up like this:

Firstly readers need to understand that I profoundly dislike all numerical based rating systems, believing that assigning an objective score to a relative assessment, unless in a show situation, is folly.

Let's say that unknown to you, two reviewers independently agreed and both considered a particular wine as "excellent" yet neither used that term in their review, instead one gave it a score of 92 and the other a 94. To get a meaningful comparison you then need to find out what each number for each reviewer actually means when related back to a descriptor. And really, which is the more relevant rating to the reader, "Excellent" or the arbitrary numbers?

Simply put, an excellent wine is an excellent wine, regardless of some unrelated, made up, inconsistent
and randomly scaled number.

The Devil You Know Shiraz 2008

Picked up a bottle for 10 bucks on special at local bottleshop. Can't find much information on it, and not listed at Kellermeister, so I suspect may be a export label.

Simple report is it's great value at that price. Plenty of quality fruit flavours, slightly sweet but not overly so, velvet tannins, mild acid, and medium-full bodied. If you find it for that price buy a case I reckon, pretty hard to find better value for 10 smackers.

Recommended and ****

Gran Sasso Montepulciano D'Abruzzo 2009

Trying so broaden my horizons I picked up a bottle of this Italian wine, mainly because the 2008 had gotten pretty good reviews. It's pretty cheap so I didn't expect it to be too impressive.

I'd call it light to medium bodied but with some noticable dusty tannins. The flavours are different to most Aussie reds, but they're a tad restrained. The nose is a lot more interesting, with someone having put a bit of blue cheese on the fruit platter.

Kinda surprising the Italian's can make a wine like this and ship it halfway round the world for ten bucks. A pleasant quaffer though a wee bit simple overall for me to want to drink it too often, it does however yell "get me a pizza!".

I rate it agreeable and ***.

Laughing Jack - "Jacks" Shiraz 2009

Swirling my glass I can see long dark crimson legs, and whilst the legs don't belong to some supermodel wearing red tights, the owner is still showing her youth.

The perfume she's wearing is familiar. I can't quite work out where I know it from, and it doesn't really matter anyway if she smells this good.

I've somewhat prejudged her based on those crimson tights, but it seems I've got her all wrong. She might be bold but she's slinky, spicey, classy, and almost surprisingly, her kisses are velvet soft, and deliciously long.

I can see why Jack's laughing.

Highly Recommended and **** value. Buy a dozen I reckon and share with friends over the next 9 years. Why 9 and not 10? Ask Jack.

Schild Estate 2008 Shiraz

Edit: review withdrawn, see comments and this.

To note, at this time most bottles will not yet have the added label showing the bottle to be a second 'blend'.

Dear Aussies, you can have this other wine, all the award winning ones are being sent to the USA. It's just as good, honest!

Tim Adams Cellar Door Nov 2010

I just realised I never got around to posting my tasting notes from the late November trip to Clare, so I'll do that over the next week or so. Here's the Tim Adams tastings for a starter. The notes are brief as I just cannot get into a wine in a small sip.

Tim Adams

2010 Riesling - crisp acid, hidden fruit, harmonious balance but too mineral for me. Agreeable **
2008 Reserve Riesling - lively acid, noticable fruit, good balance. Hint of toast now. needs 5yrs. Agreeable ***
2009 Semillon - lively acid, noticable fruit, oak balance good. Agreeable. ***
2010 Pinot Gris - far too sweet for my palate.
2007 Fergus - acid mild, lean body, obvious fruit, complex, drink now style. Rec. ***
(blend is Grenache, Shiraz, CabSav, Tempranillo, Mataro)
2008 Reserve Tempranillo - rounded tannins, freshing acid, obvious fruit, savoury. Rec. ***
2006 Cabernet Sav/Malbec - dry tannins, refreshing acid, obvious fruit;savoury, earthy, mouthfilling. H.Rec. ***
2007 Shiraz - dry tannins, refreshing acid, fruit forward, full body, complex. H.Rec ****
2008 Aberfeldy - dry tannins, refreshing acid, obvious fruit, very full body, refined complexity, classy, H.Rec ***

The 2007 Shiraz was a bit of a standout, cellar door staff made it known that because no 2007 Aberfeldy was made that all that fruit went into the cheaper Shiraz, and it shows. It's not a pseudo-Aberfeldy but it is very good value. Noticed it was $27 at one point and is now $20 CD, hence my value rating.


My Tasting notes are a derivation of TORBs and mostly take the format;

Tannins smooth, silky, velvet, rounded, dusty, dry, chalky, puckering, overwhelming
Acid sour, tart, crisp, lively, refreshing, mild   
Fruit hidden, noticable, obvious, forward, big, huge
Body light, lean, medium, muscular, full, huge
Balance disjointed, plain, uncomplicated, harmonious, sophisticated, diverse, complex, intricate
Rating  CP, BD, Accept, Agree, Rec, Highly Rec, Excellent, Outstanding, Ultimate 
Value   *   **   ***  ****   *****
Note: I try to always mark quite hard when I'm CD tasting.

Tim Adams Cleanskin 2007 Shiraz

This is a wine made specifically for fund raising to support the Variety Club, an extremely worthy charity that helps kids.

At $80 a case it's stunning value, and $20 of that goes to the charity.

The Shiraz is med-full bodied, good quality fruit, fine tannins, balanced acid and a very nice quaff indeed. As a mark of a well made wine this one improves with a few hours breathing, and indeed I would expect it to continue to improve in the cellar for a few years at least.

You would be crazy to buy one of those no-name cleanskins from the large chains when you can have a very good value wine like this and be helping needy kids at the same time.

More info here. And I can tell you the 06 Merlot is even better and the Sparkling GSM a great little BBQ wine.

Very classy of you indeed Mr. Tim Adams!