Finding good red wine harder than ever to buy at the same old prices? No doubt you are. It’s no secret that demand for Australian red wine is at an unprecedented fever pitch both within Australia and without and that a sequence of low-yielding vintages has simply exaggerated their scarcity. Only a handful of quality Australian makers have failed to yield to the very lucrative possibilities offered by export, so it’s becoming clearer all the time just how good the Australian red wine drinker had it for so long. All of which of course offers little consolation to the thirsty resident Australian, who now must fossick around harder than ever before to lay hands on good local red wine at affordable prices. But hope still lingers. Amid the cacophony of doom and gloom are still several excellent Australian red wine complete with all the desirable bells and whistles and which sell for well below $20. While fortune might not be shining quite as brightly on the discerning Australian winebibber, it’s still a lucky country. You can be sure of that. Let me introduce to you a wee collection of my favourite bargains. Barwang It’s no secret that even McWilliams were rather taken aback with the sheer consistency and quality of the shiraz and cabernet sauvignon from their Barwang vineyard, sited high in the new and relatively cool Hilltops region of New South Wales. Barwang’s two reds are rich, highly spiced and earthy, with deep, concentrated dark fruits and fine-grained firm tannins. Deftly made by Jim Brayne at McWilliams’ Yenda winery, they’re fine to enjoy young but will certainly reward cellaring for five to eight years. Irrigation water supply is something of an issue at Barwang, so yields will never be excessive; as sure a guarantee as you can get that temptation will never have a chance to stretch yields and diminish quality from the vineyard’s exemplary standard. Bowen Estate If you didn’t know it already, Doug Bowen is a true friend to the Australian red drinker. His wines are cheaper than they could be and he likes it that way. Although like most other Coonawarra red makers he found the 1995 season a greater challenge than he might have hoped for, Doug Bowen’s reds are typically robust and flavoursome, concentrated with the fruit from low yielding mature Coonawarra vineyards. Deftly married with vanilla and chocolate oak influence, they reliably repay cellaring for the medium to long term. The three Bowen Estate reds are made from straight varietal shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, plus an earlier-drinking blend from Bordeaux varieties. Chateau Tahbilk They’re an old-fashioned low-oak alternative to the modern Australian red whose oak influence is far more assertive, but Chateau Tahbilk reds are very affordable, come with an exemplary cellaring track record and tend to look their best after around eight years of age. Sadly most are opened well before that. Given sufficient time, Tahbilk’s very modestly priced shiraz and cabernet sauvignon display wonderfully complex, earthy, farmyard and leathery flavours. Huntington Estate For reasons that entirely escape me and clearly have little to do with the quality of its wine, Mudgee is not a fashionable wine area. That being the case, classic Australian cellaring reds like those of Bob Roberts at Huntington Estate are under-valued, under-priced and usually opened well before they reach their prime. Released to the market with more age than the vast majority of Australian reds, Huntington’s robust and occasionally quite opulent shiraz, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet merlot blends are sought after by those in the know. The 1993 Cabernet Merlot and 1993 Shiraz are nothing less than brilliant. So, if you didn’t know before, you do now. Montrose Another under-rated Mudgee brand, Montrose releases one of the best-value cabernet merlot blends in the land. A serious wine for a price a visiting Martian would seriously question, it’s a firm, medium-term red with a typically tight marriage between intense cassis-like fruit and smart oak. Montrose is a northern outpost of the Orlando Wyndham group and one of its small collection of ultra-reliable Mudgee labels. Rymill Rymill is another Coonawarra maker offering genuinely ripe, medium-term, main drag Coonawarra reds at generous prices. The Merlot Cabernets blend is a supple, fleshy favourite of mine with loads of fruit flavour. Drink it at purchase or shortly thereafter. Seaview Even when they became 100% McLaren Vale reds again a few years ago, the Seaview stable of reds didn’t become more expensive. Today they’re as reliable as ever before and can be found either side of the $10 mark. The few old Seaview bottles I keep for several years remind me time and again just how well these wines cellar for a very modest investment. Tollana No article on under-priced Australian red wine would be complete without a reference to the finely balanced and tightly crafted Eden Valley shiraz and cabernet sauvignon, which Neville Falkenberg creates for this low profile Southcorp label. Approachable and intensely fruit-driven while young, these are true cellar styles, especially the TR222 Cabernet Sauvignon, which from better seasons is a genuine premium red able to develop delightful earthy and cedary qualities after eight or more years. Trentham Estate Tony Murphy has a well-deserved following for his sumptuously flavoured, early-maturing soft red wines which are ideally suited to the bistro table or to the cellar under the bed with only room for a few dozen for a couple of years. Trentham Estate wines are grown in a warm, inland irrigated river region to the south of New South Wales and are found between $10 and $14. I’m most impressed with the shiraz, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet merlot blend, each of which habitually display genuine varietal qualities. Water Wheel Peter Cumming’s shiraz and cabernet sauvignon wines have become something of an Australian benchmark. They’re complex, intense and mouthfilling in the first flush of youth. They also sport a fashionably assertive dose of oak which Cumming deftly interweaves with the ripe fruit flavours he invariably achieves from his vineyard at Bridgewater-on-Loddon, near the central Victorian city of Bendigo. They cellar well for the medium term, but so drinkable are they at first release, I don’t think anyone really bothers to try. Dollar for dollar, they just can’t be beat. The Bargain Red Dozen Barwang Shiraz $15 Bowen Estate Shiraz $21 Chateau Tahbilk Cabernet Sauvignon $13 Chateau Tahbilk Shiraz $13 Huntington Estate $14 (cellar door) Montrose Cabernet Merlot $15 Rymill Merlot Cabernets $16 Seaview Shiraz $15 Tollana TR222 Cabernet Sauvignon $16 Trentham Estate Merlot $13 Water Wheel Cabernet Sauvignon $14 Water Wheel Shiraz $13 These prices are approximate retail only and will vary.
