Houghton has won friends everywhere with its Jack Mann cabernet blend. Since its first release from the 1994 vintage it has consistently set a high quality standard, even if its precise blend and regional origins have altered somewhat from vintage to vintage. This issue is of course immaterial, since it’s a style, rather than a vineyard, that the company is attempting to develop. Although it’s priced considerably cheaper than the Jack Mann, for the time being at least, Houghton has now created a stablemate. Naturally it’s shiraz, and I applaud the company for going to the Frankland River to find the best material it could. Since the excellent 1994 vintage I’ve held a soft spot for the northern shirazes from Frankland River, which are undeniably different from the southern parts of the Great Southern region such as Mount Barker, Denmark and the Porongorups. They’re more structured, with firmer tannins, wilder, more pungent spices and darker, black fruit flavours, occasionally with a wild fennel character. Named after Dr John Gladstones, a well-known research scientist in WA agriculture who had much to do with the introduction of shiraz into this region, the new Gladstones Shiraz 1999 is a Frankland River shiraz of stature and breeding. Houghton’s Made from low-yielding 30 year-old vines at the ‘Justin Vineyard’, it was harvested ripe at 14 degrees Baume. Fermented with 5% whole bunches after a week’s cold maceration, it was then allowed to go dry on skins before pressing into 100% new Burgundian barriques, where its secondary fermentation took place. Bottled after eighteen months in oak, it presents all the power and concentration that the Houghton winemakers associate with this vineyard. Deep, dark and peppery, it’s scented with cassis, redcurrants, dark plums and black cherries, with an undercurrent of exotic spices, mocha and vanilla oak. Powerful, and full of impact, it still reveals the suppleness and fineness associated with northern Rhone shiraz. Its voluptuous palate of slightly smoky and leathery flavours of blackberries, black cherries and mulberries is tightly connected with a spine of firm but fine-grained tannins and cedary vanilla oak. It’s savoury to finish, with a lingering hint of bitumen and briar. Rated 18.9 (best drinking 2007-2011+), it’s no give-away at $60, but amply justifies the asking price.
